Infinite Christmas
by Chaltab
Summary: A parody. The DCU spirals out of control as an old villain returns to set things right and turns young Tim Drake to his side. Now Batman must put aside his hatred of Santa Claus and work with the JLA to stop the villain before he destroys everything.
1. Season's Greetings

**Author's Note:** This is a work of parody. The characters in this story are wildly out of character in many cases because their more ridiculous aspects are exaggerated for the sake of humor. This is perhaps my first attempt at a 'crack fic', but I assure you there is a method to the madness. I'll tell you when I figure out what that method is.

* * *

**Thanksgiving**

Jeremy Saxon had never really cared much for driving. It was frightening to him—being behind the wheel of two tons of screaming metal. Especially here in America, where everyone drove on the wrong bloody side of the road.

For this reason, he walked everywhere he went. His office wasn't far from his home, and it gave him his exercise. His wife had a car, and that would do for emergencies. So he walked. Everyday, Jeremy walked through North Park Cemetery, one of many on the north side of Metropolis. The corpses didn't mind. They were, well, corpses after all. There were a lot of them there that hadn't been dead that long, too. After that horrible Crisis a couple years ago? And all those supervillains gathering in Metropolis to bring down Superman's city?

Thousands had been left dead. Jeremy meant them no disrespect—he just didn't think they'd care.

There was one grave he passed every day that had always been a bit curious simply because there was absolutely no indication as to whose grave it was. And on this slightly overcast, chilly November afternoon, he passed the grave as usual. And as usual, wondered whose body lay underneath.

"Poor bloke," he thought aloud. "Probably so mangled nobody could identify his remains."

Jeremy blinked, as something imperceptible changed. It took him a moment to register, but he gradually put words to the thought. The ground was shaking, a faint, faint rumble that was gradually building. And it was coming right below his feet!

Jeremy took a step back from the unmarked grave, staring at it perplexed.

And then came the purple glow. "Bligh me!" said Jeremy. It was as if the ground was leaking a radioactive gas.

Then a loud crack, muffled by the earth, reached his ears and a golden-clad hand burst forth from the grave, surrounded in purple energy.

Jeremy's pulse quickened, his heart thumping in his chest. "I'm going to die! This thing is going to kill me!" he cried. He took a step back and stumbled over another headstone, falling on his rear. He continued backwards on his butt, inching away from the resurrected hand, the fear in his gut growing…

Until suddenly the glow vanished. The hand started flailing wildly, feeling the ground around the grave..

"Huh?" Jeremy crawled forward, cautiously at first. Then the screams reached his ears. Muffled cries of fear from within the grave. "Good lord, the bloke is trapped in there!"

"MMMGPHHH! MOOGHROHH ROMMGHGH!!" cried the grave's no-longer-dead occupant. "Mpmmghrgh!!"

Jeremy reached out instinctively, clasping the golden-clad handed and pulling with all his might.

Immediately light filled his vision and Jeremy's body recoiled as if he'd been shocked, He was sent sailing backwards and smashed into a large headstone, mashing the flowerpots next to it. His vision went distorted and dim. He looked up to the grave and saw that the fist was once again glowing.

And then the earth exploded upward, the wooden coffin shattering as fragments of wood and clumps of dirt rained down everywhere. The golden-clad figure within emerged, purple energy crackling like lightning across his body, and then moved—no, he _flew_—over to the edge of the hole.

The man in gold lifted his arms, and Jeremy knew the end was about to come. He was about to die.

**POP**

**CRACK**

Jeremy watched, flabbergasted as the man moved his arms and legs in strange and unwieldy ways. About to cast some horrible spell, no doubt. One minute he'd be there, and the next, he'd be gone. _Avada Kedavra_! Poof. Just like that.

He glanced up, slipping an eyelid open just enough to see what was happening.

The man kept moving, his bones popping and cracking as he contorted.

He popped his neck, then sighed.

"Ah, there we go. I feel one hundred percent better now."

Then Jeremy realized—he wasn't attacking. He was _stretching._

And lo, Jeremy felt incredibly dumb.

"You there," said the man in gold. "Are you the one who grabbed my hand?"

"Um.. Yeah.." Jeremy answered. "I hope you don't mind, mate. I was trying to rescue you. You're not gonna kill me, are you?"

"Kill you?" the man blinked. "Why on New Earth would I do that? In fact, since you saved me from an embarrassing death, I suppose I should reward you."

"Do you have a name, mate?"

"Yes," he responded. "You may call me Alexander Luthor. Or just Alex for short, if you wish."

"Well, Alex. Nice meeting you, but I _really_ need to get going." Jeremy turned—and suddenly Alex was in front of him, blocking his exit.

"Nonsense, my friend. Not until you have your reward." Alex hovered through the air between two gravestones. Then he reached up to his collar and began pulling the golden fabric off his body.

Jerry jerked his head away and closed his eyes. _The guy's a bloody poof! _"OH, NO, WAY! Sorry, mate, I don't swing that way!"

"What?!" Luthor bellowed. "You insolent wretch, I'm not soliciting you!" He hovered down and landed. "Though I suppose I shouldn't blame you. It's the corruption of this universe that makes you think that way."

"Whuaughg?" Jeremy couldn't find the words. So he made them up. "Uugghueuigh."

"My body acts as a portal to any alternate reality you can imagine," Alex explained. "I was going to invite you into a world where you'd have a thousand virgins to cater to your every whim. I do believe this is the dimension on which Mohammed based the Islamic conception of heaven."

"You're nuts, mate. Loco. Mad. Insane!" Jeremy stormed off, throwing his hat down for no particular reason. "I've had enough!"

"Wait!" Luthor zipped his clothing back up. "Is there some other dimension I could send you to?"

"I've got a wife and kids, mate. I can't go gallivanting off to another reality." Jeremy stomped further away.

"Well, is there anything at all you _do _want?"

Jeremy stopped, and turned around, scratching his head. "Uh, well, after today, I could really use a drink. I don't suppose you got any beer."

Luthor shrugged. "Well, no." He reached into one of his golden uniform's pockets and pulled out a small bill. "Will five dollars cut it?"

Jeremy reached out and took the money, staring at it for a moment. "Gee. Thanks, mate."

"No problem," Luthor said. "Once I'm done creating the perfect Earth, money will be obsolete anyway."

Alexander Luthor hovered into the sky, a golden energy surrounding him… Then a sonic boom echoed through the city and Luthor blasted off faster than Jeremy's eyes could track.

He looked down at the legal tender in his hand. Then he promptly turned and ran off to find the nearest bar, desiring nothing more than to get as wasted as he could possibly get on five dollars.

* * *

And the being known as Alexander Luthor sped off into the distance, grinning wildly. Why shouldn't he? His plan to ensure his resurrection had worked exactly as he had planned_. Simply set the Alarm Clock Ex Machina for Thanksgiving 2007 and it works like a charm._

Now down to business. There was a lot to do before Christmas came. But Luthor was sure he would have enough time. And if those 'heroes', those morally corrupted murderers and mind-wipers, tried to stop them?

…Actually, he didn't really have any ideas on that one yet.

He'd figure something out.

* * *

**Chaltab Presents**

**A DC Comics fan fiction**

**Borrowing a Pun DC was too Politically Correct to Publish **

**INFINITE CHRISTMAS**

**Part One: Season's Greetings**

* * *

**December 5th**

A craggy white surface stretched out before the young man, a surface denser than steel that reeked of sweat and decay. The young man had a name: Timothy Drake. And he was Robin. Yeah, that Robin. Batman's sidekick, who had undergone years of physical and mental training to be prepared for anything. His sharp mind never faltered.

Slowly the boy removed his glove, and reached out and caressed the white craggy surface, and it was warm to the touch. Then it abruptly pulled away.

"What the _hell_ are you doing?!" Joseph Wilson screamed at him with the vocal chords of a failed clone of Superboy known as Match.

"You're sooo much like Conner!" Robin said, stroking Match's temples, much to Joseph Wilson's horror. Joseph had once been a great hero, a Teen Titan known as Jericho. His ability was to possess the body of anyone with which he made eye contact. Of course, that sort of backfired on him when he was himself possessed by evil spirits and turned into a murderous psychopath. Then his own father Slade had skewered him with a sword—a favor Joey would later return, ain't irony great—and killed him.

He got better. I will not bore you with how this was accomplished. Trust me, it's pretty boring. Well, except the fact that Joey spent more than a year as a mini CD shut up in the library at Titans Tower. That's kind of funny.

Now that I think of it, 'pretty boring' is a good way to describe pretty much everything that's happened to the Titans since Infinite Crisis.

Anywho, Jericho was back. Unfortunately, no sooner had he returned, he was forced to take over the decaying body of Match, and sent off to live at STAR Labs until they figured out a way to control him. This branch of STAR has tragically never heard of Kryptonite.

"Stop gently caressing me!" Jericho cried, slapping Robin's hand away.

"But I miss Conner. You remind me of him."

"How do I remind you of Conner?" Jericho spat, turning around and crossing his arms over the mirror-reversed S-Shield on Match's black shirt. (Well, technically the shirt was probably provided by Slade, and given that Slade was evil, the shirt technically did belong to Jericho.) "I'm a decaying corpse."

"But you wear a black shirt with a red S on it," Robin replied, putting his glove back on. "That makes you Conner enough for me."

Nearby, the door to the lab where Jericho and Robin were staying slid open with a pneumatic hiss, and Wonder Girl—also known as Cassandra Sandsmark—hovered in to the room. She wore a pair of jeans with the knees cut out and a rather flimsy looking red shirt. The only thing identifying her as a hero was an ancient Wonder Woman logo a cross the chest. And, well, her ability to fly, obviously.

"Okay, Tim," she said happily. "I'm here to pine after Conner for a while. Time to go angst over your father, mother, girlfriend, Bart, or someone else close to you that died that I don't know about yet."

"But Conner's my favorite," Tim Drake sighed, patting Match on the back as he slipped out of the room.

"And now you're all mine!" Cassie cried, ripping off her shirt to reveal a tiny black tube-top with the Conner symbol on it underneath.

Jericho, for his part, tried to look away. Honest, he did. He did remind himself that she was still a minor, which helped.

"Oh, you're so much like Conner!" Wonder Girl squealed.

* * *

Robin rushed out of the STAR facility—which had oddly lax security given all the high-tech and potentially lethal gadgets therein—and ran off towards the R-Cycle. As he sat down, his cell phone buzzed. He glanced at it to see that the caller was his girlfriend, Zoanne. 

"Yo!" he answered. "Tim here. What's up?"

"Tim, it's me, Zo. You did remember we had a big date for tonight, right?"

"Of course I did," Tim lied with a big smile. "You're the only one for me." _Other than Wonder Girl and Conner, of course._

"Great," Zoanne replied. "I'll expect you at six. Ciao."

"I'll be there," Tim said, hanging up the phone. He smirked as he revved up the R-Cycle. _Perfect,_ he thought. _The girl doesn't suspect a thing. She doesn't know that I, her boyfriend Tim Drake, am secretly Robin!_

* * *

Zoanne clicked her cell phone shut. 

"Perfect!" she thought aloud, opening her closet to reveal a purple-and-blue costume with a hooded cloak. "The fool has no idea, that I, Zoanne, Tim Drake's girlfriend, am secretly the Spoiler-doppelganger and super thief, Violet! Mwahahaha!"

* * *

And now we turn our attention far away, high in the heavens, beyond the Earth's atmosphere where the latest incarnation of the Justice League of America based their satellite Watchtower. 

It exploded. Don't that beat all?

Green Lantern immediately grabbed everyone he could, wrapping them in green energy within the sixty seconds it would take between the exposure to the vacuum and their untimely demise. The green energy also protected them from the shrapnel and heat.

"Oh for the love of—" Black Lightning cried as he slammed into Green Lantern in the zero-gravity environment. "John, the Watchtower blew up! That's the third one we've gone through this month!"

"Don't worry," Green Lantern said. "We've been through this before, Jeff." This particular Green Lantern was John Stewart, a black architect widely known for 'letting it all hang out' (his own terminology.) He was back-up Lantern to Hal Jordan, Hal being away fighting in a war involving a pink-skinned Space Hitler, a Cyborg duplicate of Superman named Hank, a whiny brat from our world, and a gargantuan entity that had destroyed many a universe. Odds at the League were ten to one that Hal would kick their collective butt.

"Batman's still made of money," Wonder Woman said, joining them. "He'll fix the station and have it back to normal by Christmas."

Flash and Vixen—the latter being a super model with a magic totem that let her use the abilities of animals—appeared next to them within the Green Lantern's bubble of green energy. "Man, I just got my X-Box repaired," Wally West complained. He zipped around to Black Lightning's side at super speed. "I brought it up here because Jai keeps crushing the controllers with his random bouts of Super Strength."

(The Flash was referring to his son, who was a year old. Except, he was also four years old. And yet, he was also ten years old. It's complicated.)

Black Lightning looked around. "Wait a minute!" he gasped. "Where's Bruce? Did you get him?"

"I'm fine. I'm over here," Everyone turned their heads to see Batman, alive and well… and floating outside the Green energy bubble. He just seemed to be hovering in one place, glaring out at them through his cowl. He reached up and scratches his grimacing jaw, making the stubble on his chin move. "Aren't you going to let me in?" Batman asked.

"Oh, right," John said, expanded the energy field and Batman walked over to the other gathered JLAers. "Sorry."

"Bruce! How on earth did you survive!?" Vixen asked.

The Dark Knight just glared at her. "I'm Batman," he said. "I can breath in space."

He received only blank looks. "No, seriously," Vixen repeated. "How did you do that?"

Batman grimaced even harder. "I'm _Batman_."

Flash shrugged. "That's good enough for me."

"Could you two knock it off?" demanded Black Lightning. "Since when have the laws of physics ever applied to our lives? We need to stop bickering and figure out who blew up the Watchtower this time."

"I'm already on it," Batman said, removing a small visual-communication device. "Any news?"

A voice came from the communicator, and to the other heroes' surprise it was Batman's own. "Nothing yet, Bruce."

"Stay on it, Bruce," said Batman. "Send in the Outsiders if you have to."

"They're already investigating now," said the voice on the other end of the communicator. "I'll keep you posted, Bruce."

"Good luck, Bruce." Batman clicked the communicator off.

Wally blinked. "Okay, I'm the Fastest Man Alive, and even **I** can't do THAT."

Batman just glowered. "I'm Batman."

* * *

Down on the planet, in Keystone City, Kansas, Batman sat in a mobile command center designed to look like a massive jar of urine on wheels. Originally it had just been a nondescript white truck, but that had gotten pulled over by the police for inciting fear of a terrorist attack. The jar of urine was art, of course, which meant that no cop would dare touch it or risk being accused of persecuting free speech. 

A voice crackled over his communicator. "Are you sure about this, Bats?" The voice belonged to Rex Mason, also known as Metamorpho. Look him up on Wikipedia. "I know there's something fishy going on up here, but how could it have anything to do with the Watchtower getting wasted again?"

"I'm certain," Batman said. "I've traced the signal that set off the bomb here via triangulation, and Batman double checked the results to be certain."

"You mean Batwoman?" Rex asked.

"No. The other Batman. He's currently in Tibet right now with Talia al Ghul trying to stop Ra's al Ghul from getting his body back." Batman saw a flashing light on the side of his screen and tapped the button. Two more screens flickered to life, one with a red-haired Asian woman and the other with a yellow-bearded man who looked to be about fifty. He was clad in a green outfit like Robin Hood and wearing a green domino mask.

"Grace, Green Arrow," Batman said. "Are your teams ready?"

"You bet your expletive they are!" Grace said. "Random expletive!" she reiterated.

"I'm ready too," Green Arrow said. "Let's take down these Capitalist pigs in the name of the great socialist revolution…. I mean let's beat up the bad guys."

"Expletive yeah!" Grace said.

"Go, now!" Batman shouted to all three teams. Another light on the console began flashing. "I've got another call, Batman said. Radio blackout time."

The screen flickered to life to reveal Batman, clad in some sort of blue-Arabian style scale mail, with the beautiful figure of Talia al Ghul standing behind him with her hands on the shoulders of her and Batman's demonic son, Damian.

"Ra's al Ghul isn't responsible for the destruction of the Watchtower," said Batman in Tibet. "But he is back from the dead."

"I know," Batman said. "From what I've learned, the culprit was likely Red Herring, founder of Herring Corporation. Conveniently, he is also one of Wayne Enterprises biggest competitors."

"Good thinking, Bruce," said the Tibetan Batman.

"Why thank you, Bruce," said the Batman in the jar of urine in Kansas. "Anything else?"

"Bruce… It's Robin." The Batman in Tibet looked down, worried.

"He didn't turn evil, did he?"

"Yes. He got over it. But he abandoned the fight in the middle of considering turning evil, and ran off to New York to see Match again. I think he's growing worse. We need to do something, Bruce."

"I know, Bruce." Batman in Kansas sighed. "Where is he now?"

"Somewhere in Gotham," Batman in Tibet replied.

"I'll send Katherine to find him and make sure he's not turning inexplicably evil."

"Good. Batman out."

"Batman out."

Batman in Kansas killed the transmission and made another call. This time a voice answered, though nobody new appeared on screen. "Kate Kane here, who is this?"

"I'm Batman."

"Hah, funny. No seriously, who is this?"

"Bruce Wayne."

"Oi, vey. I'm not kidding. Who are you and how did you get this number?"

"Katherine, it's me. It's really Batman. I know that you're Batwoman. I know that you and Nightwing flirted the Christmas after you debuted, despite the fact that I also know you don't swing his way."

There was silence for a moment. "Mister Batman," she said at last. "What do you need?"

"Track down Robin for me. Make sure he's not turned evil."

"I'm kind of busy. I have a SOJL meeting until seven."

"SOJL?" Batman asked, surprised to find that there was an organization he wasn't familiar with.

"The Society of Jewish Lesbians," Kate responded. "We meet and talk about knish and bar mitzvahs and how women's bodies are so much more pleasant than those of men."

"That's enough, Kate," Batman said. "Go find Robin or I'll out you to the world. That's an order. Though you are right at least that women's bodies are far more pleasant than those of men… Not that I'd know from experience, or anything. Nope. Not an ounce."

A string of profanities was released over the other end of the phone line, and Batman clicked her off. Now back to the Outsiders. He figured they probably hadn't fared well without his guidance, but he knew he could trust them to at least stay alive for a few minutes.

* * *

Six coffins sat on the lawn in front of the gathered crowd of superheroes, all of the heroes dressed in black-themed versions of their own costumes. Mourners gathered around, as Jay Garrick, the original Flash, took the podium to deliver the Eulogy. 

"We are gathered here today to mourn the passing of five great heroes, all members of the Outsiders: Green Arrow, Thunder, Grace, Metamorpho, and Katana. Much can be said about these heroes, and much as already been said. Green Arrow's life is proof that even an a middle-aged Communist in green tights still do a lot of good with just a bow, an arrow, and a hot wife with black belts in every form of martial arts known to man. Thunder and Grace… well, they were a cute couple. And they definitely saved some lives… occasionally. I really didn't know them too well, though. Metamorpho… Actually I don't really know much about him either. He seemed like a nice enough guy. And lastly, Katana. Who is he, exactly? I seem to remember him being on the old Outsiders before a while back, when Denny O'Neil was still at the top of his game."

"Katana is a woman," Wally West informed him.

"Oh, right," Jay said. He sighed deeply. "Sorry folks, the Speed Force has kept my body going well into my 90s, but my mind is still a bit rusty. Maybe I should buy one of those new fangled DS-Machines with _Brain Age Training_ or whatever you call it."

Several cheers erupted from the children in attendance.

"I'd like to say a few words!" a voice shouted. The speaker walked up to the podium, and everyone identified him as Booster Gold, a hero from the future infamous for his profiteering. He made his debut by saving then-president Ronald Reagan's life from an assassination attempt ten years ago. Yes, I know Ronald Reagan wasn't president ten years ago. Just pretend.

"First of all," Booster said into the microphone, "I know that a lot of you are going to rush to blame Batman for this. And to a degree, it is his fault. He sent them in there, probably more out of a desire to hurt Herring Corporation than for actual justice. And I know some of you are going to want to run out and catch the guys who did this. Yeah, fat chance of that. Remember what happened to Ronnie Raymond when he went out looking for Sue Dibny's killer? Ha! That didn't go so well. Finally, some of you are going to want to blame Dan DiDio for this. And you'd be right. It's mostly his fault."

"But in all honesty, do we really need these guys? I mean, sure, Green Arrow fought the good fight in his day. But the man was pushing fifty. And if the stories about Speedy—I mean _Red Arrow_—are true, I'd say that's not all he was pushing." Booster beat his hands on the podium like the comedy drum beat.

Next to Booster, a hovering robotic night watchman known as Skeets chirped in. "Technically, he surpassed fifty in 2004. Though given his return from the dead, his physical age was actually closer to thirty."

"Right, buddy," Booster said, patting his robot on the back. "As I was saying, just remember, funerals aren't always a bad thing. Think of it as cleaning out your hard drive of all the old porn you never look at anymore. That's all." Skeets nudged him. "Oh, right, Drink Soder Cola!"

From nearby, The Flash took the microphone at super speed, pushing Booster out of the way. "Booster, that was outright shameful. I'd say you're just jealous nobody showed up at your funeral. Speaking of which, I think we all liked you better when you were dead."

"Amen," the gathered mourners chanted in unison.

* * *

"I hope you're happy," Booster spat, standing next to Rip Hunter, the golden-haired Time Master. "As if my reputation wasn't bad enough, now you're making me desecrate funerals. Why do I have to do this anymore anyway? So nobody knows that I'm a hero? Isn't it a bit late considering the bad guy is _my father?_" 

"It's all apart of my master plan," Rip said, rubbing his hands together and reaching to twirl his mustache, only to find stubble. He pressed a button on the keys to his Time Sphere. It turned visible and beeped twice, indicating it was unlocked. "Now get in. We have to make sure Raven is conceived before it's too late."

"What happened, someone kill Arella?" Booster frowned.

"No, sir," Skeets said. "It is far worse than that. My records indicate that one of our enemies unleashed a virus in the Netherverse that ended up giving Trigon… some delicate problems."

Rip Hunter handed Booster a bottle of Viagra and a demon nudie magazine. Booster felt as though he would be ill.

* * *

As the funeral goers began to clear out, Tim Drake leaned against a tree, scratching his back through the itchy Robin funeral suit. "It's too bad about all this death lately. At least Geo-Force survived." 

"So did Batgirl," Wonder Girl said.

"If you ask me, that's not a good thing." Rose Wilson shrugged. "I mean, remember what she did to Bombshell?"

"She threatened to kill Deathstroke too," Robin said. "Clearly that makes her a dangerous maniac. Slade deserves a fair trial by a jury of peers. It's not like he knows my secret identity or anything."

"Wait, she did what!?" Rose's single eye, her right eye, the one she hadn't cut out with a knife, widened. "Cass threatened my dad with murder? That makes her officially awesome!"

"I just wish Cyborg could be here," Wonder Girl said with a sigh.

* * *

In a crater somewhere far away from Central City, Cyborg sat half buried in the dirt, the corpses of murdered Teen Titans rotting around him. 

"Hello!" Cyborg cried. "Anybody out there!? All these dead bodies are startin' to stank!"

The servos in his neck buzzed as he tried to look around. "Anybody? Anybody!?" No reply reached him. _Why did that artist have to get injured? Why couldn't they find a backup? _

"CURSE YOU, IAN CHURCHILL!" Cyborg cried. "A CURSE UPON YOU AND ALL YOUR CATTLE AND OXEN!"

* * *

**December 10****th**

Robin had noticed that Batwoman had been tailing him for the past few days. He had no idea why. At first he thought she might want an autograph, so Robin kept leaving notes in places where she'd see them, his signature on all of them. Eventually he thought that perhaps she wanted a date and was simply shy, but then he remembered that she was a member of the SOJL, and hence the date option seemed unlikely.

Finally, he set a trap for her. It was a simple trap, but she fell for it. Robin threw down the thirteen-hundred page technical manual for the trap onto the snow-and-ice-covered Gotham alley and walked over to Batwoman. She was hanging upside down by her ankles, and her wrists where both bound by different ropes and pulled as far apart as they would go without injuring her.

"Why are you tailing me?" Robin demanded.

She muttered for a moment, then sighed. "Batman asked me to tail you. He wanted me to make sure you weren't turning evil."

"Turning evil?" Robin gasped. "Oh, does he have to harp on that. I almost turn evil ONE time and now he's expecting it to become a habit. It's ridiculous. I thought Bruce trusted me better than that."

"So Batman _is _Bruce Wayne!" Batwoman cried. "I knew it!"

Robin pulled out his grapple gun and started to leave.

"Hey, wait, aren't you going to untie me?" Batwoman asked.

Robin looked over at her as if weighing the options and frowned. "I dunno, I really don't have a reason to. It's not like you can't get out of that yourself, with all the training I'm sure you did before starting this career."

"Um… Well." Batwoman began to sweat despite it being cold enough to see her breath.

Robin goggled. "Don't tell me you've not been trained how to get out of a simple trap."

"Well, I'm not sure. Nothing about my origin has been revealed yet, so I really can't say. Someone—_I wish I knew who_—taught me how to throw a punch. Otherwise, I'm as clueless as you are."

"Hm. In that case, I guess I could let you out. But I'll need an incentive." Nearby Robin heard the hammer of a gun click, and he whirled around to see the Question—not Vic Sage, the new female Question—pointing a magnum revolver at his crotch.

"This incentive enough?" Montoya asked, a smile forming below the flesh-colored mask.

* * *

The next morning, Kate Kane found herself on the couch in her own living room and feeling incredibly sore. Still, she felt well enough considering what the Boy Blunder had put her through. 

She had already started celebrating Hanukah, and it would close in just a few days. After that, Montoya intended to make her celebrate Christmas. Kate didn't mind.

_Montoya,_ Kate thought. _Why can't I make myself call her Renee? _

"I brought you something," Renee Montoya announced as she entered the room. "It's not much, but…"

Renee handed Kate a small bottle of champagne. "I figured you'd want to drink off last night's embarrassment."

Renee stooped down and kissed her. "Happy Hanukah, Kate."

"Merry Christmas, Renee," she answered with a smile. She popped the cork of the champagne. "Still not going to have sex with you."

"Darn it!"

* * *

Tim Drake wasn't quite sure how old he was. He always counted his age using different methods and always came up with different figures. Sometimes he was pushing forty, and sometimes he was as young as seventeen. He wasn't quite sure what the problem was. Before his father was killed, they'd celebrated his sixteenth birthday. That was about two years ago, according to Batman. Even though it happened in 2004. 

Mostly, Tim just assumed he was eighteen because that let him do pretty much anything but drink without breaking the law.

Nonetheless, he was old enough to know what suspicious behavior was. The subject he was stalking was exhibiting several signs of it, including a hurried pace despite nothing he seemed to be hurrying to.

Robin had left his costume back at Wayne Manor tonight by mistake, but managed to disguise himself with a coat and a pair of dark sunglasses he picked up at a local Seven-Eleven. He followed the suspicious man through several city blocks, hoping that it wasn't the Joker.

He'd had enough of the Joker _last_ Christmas. (Or was it the Christmas before last? Or maybe it was this Christmas. He wasn't certain.)

Finally, the suspicious figure turned into an alley near a decrepit video arcade that Tim knew was a dead end. He followed the man into the alley, ready to fight for his life, if need be.

At the end of the alley, the man stood with his back turned. At first Robin thought he might be urinating in public, which was still technically a crime. A citizens' arrest would look good on his college application, he thought.

But then the man turned around, and Robin realized that he was wearing a Guy Fawkes mask.

"You think you're V for Vendetta?" Tim asked, slipping into his Robin voice.

"Technically the character's name is V," the man in the yellow coat said. "The_for Vendetta_ part is just the title of the comic."

"Whatever. Who are you?"

"I think I should ask you the same question, Tim Drake." The man tilted his head as if to emphasize the Guy Fawkes' smile. "Who are you?"

"How do you know my name?" Tim demanded.

"I know a lot about you, Robin."

Robin gasped. "Great Scott! He has discovered my secret identity! Better call Zatanna."

"NO!" the man shouted. "You will not call that corrupt witch in here to erase my mind like you did to good-hearted souls like Doctor Light, Batman, Catwoman, and Richard Nixon. Your world's pathetic and corrupt heroes do nothing but destroy. That is why this world has to be destroyed. This is totally not a hypocritical statement."

"Hm." Robin thought a moment. "That rant sounded very familiar."

"Um. Pure coincidence, I assure you." The man bowed elaborately. "My name is Lou Alexander, and I can give you Conner back."

"You can?" Robin asked, arching an eyebrow. "Ra's al Ghul promised me the same thing, and I ended up turning evil. I'll only risk turning evil if you throw in my mom and dad as well."

"Done," said Lou. "And you can have Stephanie and Bart back too. Everyone."

"Who?" Robin asked, puzzled. He searched his brain, as if a tickle of a memory were trying to come to the surface. "Nope, nothing."

"Spoiler and Kid Flash," Lou said, frustration creeping into his voice. "You know. The girl you didn't get pregnant and the guy who could run really fast."

"Oh yeah, them!" Robin snapped his fingers. "I broke a perfectly good cell phone when Bart died. He owes me one."

"…." Lou stared at him. _This child has become an imbecile, _he thought. _That makes him perfect for my plan. The fool doesn't even realize that I, Lou Alexander, am actually Alexander Luthor in disguise!_

"Did you here something?" Tim asked, glancing around. "It sounded like an echoey nefarious announcement."

"Um, it must have come from the arcade," Lou explained. _Mwahahahahaha!_

"So what do I need to do?" Tim asked.

"Before the Twenty-Fifth of this month, I will need you to collect for me three items of incredible power: the three gifts of the Magi passed down to the Christ Child two thousand years ago."

Lou handed Tim a tracking device that displayed a world map.

"There's more than three blinking lights on this thing," Robin said. "I thought the only gifts were Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh."

"True," Lou Alexander said. "But the Gold itself was smelted down by a Pope in the middle ages and made into Holy Coins."

"Holy Coins?" Tim arched an eyebrow. "This sounds like something out of a Dan Brown novel—only less historically accurate. And that's SAYING something."

"We'll see," Lou said. "We'll see. Find me the pieces and then we'll talk."

* * *

Cute little squirrels ran by, nibbling on the corpse of a nearby former Titan as it rotted in the cool December breeze. 

"Someone please dig me out of this hole!" Cyborg sobbed. "I'm tired of watching man-eating squirrels tear the flesh from Power Boy's bones!"**  
**

* * *

**Story Beta-read By Legend Maker and BobCat.**

_**Legend Maker: **Wow, you really ratcheted the absurdity up for this, didn't you?_

_**Chaltab**: Ah, but ask yourself, is this any more absurd than most of what's been happening at DC over the past year or two?_

_**Legend Maker:** I stand corrected._

_I suppose an explanation is in order. I, like many like-minded comics fans, am largely turned off by much of DC Comics output over the past two years. Especially the emasculation—both literally and figuratively—of the Teen Titans volume three. Kon-El and Bart Allen have both been killed off, and the only male on the Titans other than Robin is now Kid Devil, unless you count the 'sort of' Titan Blue Beetle. Furthermore, the book has failed to even have a consistent writer or roster since One Year Later began. All the while, Tim Drake, once my favorite DC character, has been heading closer and closer towards the deep end in his obsession with getting Conner back. And don't even get me started on Countdown or Amazons Attack._

_This parody is a satire of what I feel is wrong with DC's editorial direction. I'm aware that it is pretty much incomprehensible for anyone not already a comics nerd. Ask any questions in your reviews and I'll try and answer them._

_  
And honestly, I don't hate everything they're doing, but I hate enough of it for this to be a fun story to write. I'll listen to any constructive review, positive or negative. If you think a joke or character is falling flat or being underutilized, please tell me. Part Two should be forthcoming._

**And whether you like this story or not, Merry Christmas and happy New Year.**


	2. Jingle Bells

**Part Two: Jingle Bells**

**December 15****th**

Snow poured down on the Gotham City streets, obscuring visibility for miles all around and making close-up visibility imperfect. Pedestrians scurried about, setting off on their last minute shopping, and Robin rode his R-Cycle through the streets. He thought back to last Christmas when he'd been kidnapped by the Joker and fought his way free through a combination of fists and Grouch Marx impersonations.

"Robin," came the voice of Batman over his bike's intercom. "There's no point in being so paranoid. The Joker isn't here."

"I can't be sure. He's come back so many times."

"He's busy in Salvation Run, Robin," Batman said. "Unless you want to crossover with that debacle, you don't have anything to worry about. I know what happened last year hurt, but.."

"Batman, I don't want to think about it." Robin turned a corner on to Kane Street and opened the throttle on his bike. "I just want—"

_**KRAKAVOOM!**_

Suddenly, a huge open sleigh blasted over Robin's head, smashing into nearby pedestrians. The green-haired, purple-jacketed man atop the sleigh began singing merrily as he whirled the sleigh down the road.

_Jingle Bells_

_Batman Smells_

_Robin laid an Egg!_

The Joker sang merrily.

_The Batmobile lost a wheel _

_and Joker got away! Hey!  
_

_Oh what fun it is to ride_

'_Round Gotham on a 'SLAY'!_

Joker threw his head back and began cackling. "Hahahahahahahhehehehehehhoho!"

"NO!" Robin cried. He throttle the bike forward faster, ignoring the worsening Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms and matching Joker's speed. "Pull over, Joker, I'm not having a repeat of last year!"

The Joker turned and shot at him with a gun, and Robin let off the gas, falling back long enough to pull out a batarang and knock the gun from Joker's hand. He pulled up beside the Clown Prince again, narrowing his eyes.

"There's something different about you," Robin growled. The white on his face wasn't his scarred skin; it was make up. And his grin was literally carved into his face—two huge puckered scars on both sides. "Are you the Joker that Morrison wrote in _Batman_ #663 and then everyone promptly forgot about?"

"I don't know who you are or where you think you've seen me before," Joker said, "But I must ask you a question."

The madman grinned.

"WHY SO SERIOUS!"

Suddenly a rocket launcher popped out of a hidden panel on the back of the sleigh and a rocket lanced out at Robin. He slammed on his handbrake as to not get blown up, then throttled forward on the other side.

"Holy crap, I should have known!" Robin snarled. "He's the Joker from the upcoming film _The Dark Knight_."

The Joker just cackled madly and continued on, randomly murdering pedestrians as he went. Robin, not knowing what to expect, threw a tracking device onto the back of the sleigh and came skidding to a halt.

"I'll let Batman handle this one," he said to himself. "I already have a commitment—to Lou Alexander."

* * *

The DC Comics offices were milling about as the final week of comics before Christmas was about to ship. In all the business nobody noticed a young black woman storm into the building and kick over a chair. She stood for a moment, waiting for someone's attention, but not finding it. The receptionist at the front desk began to grow worried as the young woman stormed up.

"Hey, you!" she growled. "I want to talk to your boss about the recent March Solicits."

"I'm sorry, ma'am," said the receptionist," But I can't just let anyone in to see the writers or editors. Can I have your name?"

The young woman glowered. "I'm Zoanne. You know, Robin's current girlfriend? I have an issue with these solicits for March. They_clearly _depict Violet on the cover as a Caucasian blonde chick."

"Yes, miss," the receptionist said, leaning away from the print-out which Zoanne had shoved in her face so closely that she could smell the ink. "I fail to see the problem."

"Well if this is the case, it means two things. Either I'm not Violet, or I have _ANOTHER_cover where I'm colored as a blonde white chick. Either way, you're gonna be seeing a letter from my lawyer. I didn't drive all the way up here from Gotham on an intermediate license for nothing!"

"I'm afraid I can't delineate any more information on this solicitation," the receptionist said, pushing her glasses up on her face impatiently. "To do so would spoil the issue."

"Oh, REAL funny!" Zoanne said, crossing her arms with the print-out now dangling under her armpit. She leaned back and rolled her eyes. Her tone made her sarcasm so thick you would have to have the IQ of Bette Kane to miss it. "You can't _spoil_the issue. Because, you know, Violet looks like Spoiler. That was just _brilliant._"

"I assure you, ma'am, there was no pun intended in my statement."

Zoanne turned and stormed off towards the door, throwing a glance over her shoulder. "Like hell there wasn't. I'm gonna sue your racist butts back to the Stone Age."

* * *

Far away in Gotham, the real Violet slid her closet shut and smiled. "Mwahahaha. Little does anyone know, that I, Violet, am actually—"

A poison dart slammed into her neck and Violet fell to the floor unconscious. Chaltab stepped into the room and removed the dart, dropping it in his pocket. "Uh-uh. No way I'm going to make another prediction on her identity after getting it wrong in the last chapter.

* * *

The Bat-Cycle tore off the stone banister and rail atop one of Gotham City's many cathedrals as it flew towards the one-horse open sleigh below. Batman's shocks went into overdrive as the motorcycle slammed into the asphalt and bounded.

"Ouch." Batman said. "My groin is in severe, indescribable pain. I should not have dropped this motorcycle from three stories. I want to curl into a ball and cry."

"I shall prepare the Aspirin for your return, sir," came Alfred's voice over the communicator. "In the meantime, I would advise you not to put yourself at further risk."

A hail of machine gun fire tore into the street in front of him, and Batman swerved the motorcycle out of the way. The Joker was firing at him from the back of the sleigh, and Batman knew sooner or later if this kept up, Joker would get lucky.

He turned the Bat-Cycle into a side street and throttled forward, blazing in between cars and pedestrians, then making another turn, coming back onto the main road in front of Joker's sleigh.

"Resourceful as always, no matter the universe, Bats!" Joker cried, peppering the road with bullets again. "Imagine, taking a side street that my sleigh couldn't possibly fit down. A work of sheer genius."

"I'm Batman," said the Joker's foe. "I do not appreciate being mocked." Batman throttled forward again and used the eject button on the bike to throw himself forward at the sleigh.

"My groin now hurts even worse," he said dispassionately as he slammed into the Joker and the two of them tumbled from the sleigh and into the snow-and-ice-covered street.

Unfortunately, the Bat-Cycle crashed into Joker's horse. The results were predictably messy, for both sides, though the consensus was that the Bat-Cycle won.

"Why so serious?" Joker asked, cackling madly.

"You keep repeating that line as if it were the tag line for a feature film," Batman growled, throwing the Joker against a wall. Joker pulled a knife from his pocket and tried to slice into the Batman's chest; Batman parried and kneed him in the crotch.

"OOhh!" Joker shrieked. "I'll be singing soprano for a while after that one._Jingle Bells, Batman smells_, _Robin laid an egg!_"

"How do you know that song?" Batman demanded. "There is no Robin in your universe."

"Oh, I just found it written on the wall of my cell at Arkham when I woke up here," Joker said, trying to stab the knife into Batman's jugular.

"And how did you get there?" Bruce demanded.

"You know," Joker said, tilting his scarred visage sideways, "I'm not quite sure. I just remember a man. A man in an atrocious Guy Fawkes mask. Ugliest thing in the world. Aside from me, of course. HAHAHAHAHEHEEHHEHEHEHOHOHOHUHUHU!"

Batman smashed the laughing maniac across the face, and he fell unconscious.

"A man in a Guy Fawkes mask," Batman thought aloud. "Interesting."

* * *

"I found the first Holy Coin," Robin said, handing it to Lou Alexander. The frigid December wind buffeted him and Tim wondered how Lou could stand to be on such a high rooftop during the dead of winter. As soon as Robin got back to Wayne Manor, he was going to take a long, hot shower… and think of Conner, of course.

"Very good," Lou said, leaning forward, his shoulders hunched in satisfaction. "Who would have thought that one of the Holy Coins would be in Alfred Pennyworth's penny loafers?"

"I have a feeling the next few are going to be harder," Robin said. "There's one in an Opal City museum, and Jack Knight's not been around for a while, so I shouldn't have much trouble."

Robin arched his eyebrow and thought a moment. "Unless I run into The Shade. Great Scott, I'm going to die horribly!"

"Nonsense," Lou Alexander said. "As long as you aren't actually trying to harm Opal City, the Shade will probably leave you alone."

"Good. Another one is in a Vatican bunker, though. I might have to deal with the Catholic Church if I want that one."

Lou nodded. "Regrettable, but it must be done."

"But doesn't fighting the Catholic Church make me Evil?" Tim asked with a frown. "I really need to watch my Dark Side Meter on this one."

Lou trembled, seemingly enraged for a moment, and then let out a deep sigh. "You're not turning evil, Timothy." _Only this corrupt Universe is._ "It's simply a conflict of interests. Besides, if the Pope wasn't such a stingy old geezer and let women have birth control and abortions, then Stephanie might not have had to go through the pain of child birth."

"Stephanie?" Robin asked.

"SPOILER, you ignorant dolt," Lou spat. "Your ex-girlfriend who got pregnant while you were away cavorting with Young Justice."

"Oh, right." Robin scratched his head. "Wait a minute, that was her fault for sleeping around at sixteen! You can't blame the Pope for that! Or Congress, or the President, or anyone whose fault it usually is."

Lou Alexander leaned back and sighed. _A glimmer of his old intelligence. He might not be as easy to manipulate as I had thought._

"Did you hear that?" Tim asked, looking around. "I could have sworn I hear that generic evil mastermind voice in my head again."

"Maybe Ron Pearlman is auditioning nearby," Lou offered.

"That must be it," Robin said. "Say, speaking of Evil Masterminds, did you hear about the Joker from another universe showing up in Gotham today? How weird is that?"

"Very strange indeed," Lou Alexander said. "I certainly didn't open a trans-dimensional portal and let him into New Earth to destabilize the fabric of reality or anything."

Robin stroked his chin and furrowed his brow. "I'm as clueless as you are. I just wish I had a lead."

Lou Alexander laughed to himself. _And just as quietly as the intelligence arrives, it fades away again in an instant._

* * *

Even as Batman began investigating the mysterious appearance of another world's Joker in this world, Batman and Batman were far from Gotham, investigating two more pieces of the puzzle. One Batman found himself in Central City, silently infiltrating the base in which many of his Outsiders team mates had been killed. At his side was Cassandra Cain—Batgirl—one of the few surviving members of the team.

The two figures slinked through the building, taking out security cameras as they went. For some reason, guards were never alarmed when security cameras were destroyed—only when the cameras saw intruders. Batman and Batgirl would of course use this to their advantage.

Batman glanced to his side… and goggled when he saw that Cassandra was taking her clothes off.

"What are you doing, Batgirl!?" he whispered.

"Chuck Dixon said… it was a good idea."

"I don't care what Chuck Dixon says," Batman growled. "Keep your costume on."

"Okay."

The two continued down the corridor, taking out cameras until they found the security room. The guard at the station was beating on the side of the now-dormant monitors as if trying to get the picture to come back on. He muttered angrily at them and cursed technology in general.

Cassandra thwumped him over the back of the head, and he fell unconscious.

"Computer," she said, pointing towards one.

"Yes, Cassandra, very good," Batman said, grinning. "You know how to say computer."

Batgirl glared at him beneath her stitched black cowl. "Use it. Hack the system. Find out who killed the Outsiders."

Batman stared at her for a moment. "I liked you better when you knew just a dozen words."

"A few choice words:" Cassandra began; then she cursed Batman out in the least eloquent but most efficient stream of cursing Batman had ever heard.

When she was done, Batman hacked into the computers. "Interesting," Batman said. "It seems that the day we infiltrated the building, Red Herring hired the security services of one Lou Alexander. There's an address on Kane Street. We'll go investigate it."

"Everything's… on Kane Street," Batgirl sighed.

* * *

A flash of light surrounded the C-List Monitor Posse… Er, I mean, the Challengers of the Beyond, and suddenly, they found themselves in a universe that was in some way different than the one they just left.

The Challengers aren't a particularly interesting bunch, mind you. Their leader is Bob, one of the Eighty members of the Monitor legion that watch over the 52 universe—one monitor for each universe. No, this math doesn't make sense. Please pretend.

Bob believes—because a giant inanimate wall in space told him—that the key to saving the Multiverse from destruction is a man named Ray Palmer—the Atom. Ray went missing a few years ago after his wife went crazy and killed Ralph Dibny's wife; he just kept shrinking until he was so small he could fit between the cracks in universes. Considering that there was only one universe at the time he began shrinking, how he accomplished this is still a mystery.

Nonetheless, Bob and his allies have spent the better part of the last year searching for the elusive Mister Palmer.

Donna Troy, former Wonder Girl and now utterly without a superheroine alias, is a girl with many different pasts. As a child, she was rescued from a burning ship by Wonder Woman, except that was before Wonder Woman so the Titans of Myth rescued her. Except now Wonder Woman has been around longer so it might have been Wonder Woman again. Or she might have been an Amazon all along. Who knows. Donna was the only female among the Challengers, and hence was the target of affections of the two human males.

Jason Todd, a former Robin, was the first male. Immature and quite frankly stupid, Todd was beaten to death by the Joker. He got better. Then he went on a killing spree, carrying around the severed heads of the criminals he murdered in a duffle bag. He's mellowed out a bit now, though.

The other is Kyle Rainer, recently turned evil by Parallax; he's now back and infinitely less cool than he was back in the 1990s. He was originally the Green Lantern selected to replace Hal Jordan, but now that Hal Jordan is back, he's just sort of there. He used to be nearly omnipotent. Now he's just second fiddle to an aging ex-fighter pilot.

Anyway, these guys stepped out of a portal and into the fresh air of Central Park in New York City.

"Fresh air," Jason said, taking a deep breath. "Well, as fresh as New York gets. Still beats the Coal Mine universe."

Kyle Rainer shrugged. "Yeah, but I think I like the Chocolate Coated universe a bit better."

"What world is this, Bob?" Donna asked.

"Good one Donna!" Kyle said. Donna hadn't actually told a joke; Kyle just complimented her as often as possible because he secretly hoped she'd have sex with him—girls tended to avoid Kyle because they ended up in refrigerators more often than not.

Bob glared at Kyle and responded to Donna's question. "I'm not sure," he said. "We were hit while traveling between universes by some unknown force and sent careening into another vector. We could be anywhere in the multiverse at this point."

Jason pointed across the street. "Well, that signs says _Welcome To Central Park, New York City, New Earth_. If I had to guess, I'd say we're home."

"Just in time for the nondenominational holiday season!" Donna beamed. "I'll be able to celebrate the pagan winter rituals with Wonder Woman!"

"Ha, Good one Donna!" Kyle laughed.

"That wasn't a joke, Kyle. If you're going to mock my religion, I think it would be best if we stopped seeing each other."

Kyle goggled. "But we aren't dating!"

Suddenly, the ground began shaking, vibrations running from the feet of the Challengers all the way to their brains, and the Earth exploded away, splitting open to reveal a massive robot—a round body with a dome on top supported by four mechanical legs, each with massive bear-like metal feet on the end. Several mechanical tentacle-arms with massive talons on them protruded from the sides of the machine.

On the chassis, two words appeared in black lettering.

"Great Hera!" cried Donna. "It's a killer called _**Honey Bun**_!"

One of the massive feet slammed down where Kyle had been standing, and he flew out of the way, blasting at the creature with his power ring. "What on Earth is this thing?"

Jason ran in a wide arc around the monstrosity, hurling grenades and batarangs at it. They bounced off with little effect. "Who names their giant death machine Honey Bun? What is this, the pastry universe?"

"I don't know!" Donna said, blocking the claws as they tried to smash her. "It's been a while. The original Teen Titans fought this thing back in the 1960s. Um, I mean, _ten years ago._"

Kyle and Jason looked at each other and shrugged.

Donna frowned. "It didn't make any sense then either."

Bob pulled his gun from his belt—you wouldn't have seen it earlier, as it was invisible up until the point Bob touched it—and blasted at Honey Bun. "Nonetheless, we must put this creature down and continue on our quest to find Ray Palmer."

* * *

Alexander Luthor smiled as he and his companions reached the North Pole. To his right were Psycho Pirate, Rorschach, and Alan Quartermain. To his left were Little Boy Blue, Pikachu, and Sinbad—the sailor, not the actor. It was a rag-tag bunch that Alex had haphazardly collected from across the multiverse over the last month since Thanksgiving, but it would have to do for now. Rorschach was in it for the opportunity to rid the world of evil; Psycho Pirate wanted revenge for what Black Adam had done to him. Little Boy Blue just liked to make his sword say _SNICKER-SNACK_. The others were mostly in it for the money that Alex had lied and promised to pay him. Quartermain needed the cash to keep up his Opium habit.

Pikachu, though, was an enigma. He didn't talk much, and when he did, all he ever said was his name. Alex didn't trust him. His face was just too cute and innocent to be for real in such a corrupt world.

But Alex would deal with that when the time came. As the seven soldiers entered the gates to the North Pole, Alex heard jingle bells begin ringing in the background. Elves armed with giant candy-canes began marching out of snow-swept barracks, and Santa Claus himself was approaching.

Alex halted his company and stepped forward to greet the Jolly Saint Nick.

"Santa."

"Luthor."

"You know my terms, old man," Alex said. "Surrender the North Pole to me or face destruction the likes of which you've never seen."

"Oh please!" Satnta laughed. "I'm Kris Kringle! I, who Conquered the Martians, outfoxed Jack Frost AND rode the Moon Worm! You may DO YOUR WORST, Alex Luthor."

"I take that to mean you're not going to surrender."

Santa shook his head. "Like hell."

"You amuse me old man," Luthor said, turning and walking back to his ranks.

"I've been watching you, Alex," Santa said, stroking his long white beard. Luthor turned. "I see you when you're sleeping; I know when you're awake. I know that you're an incompetent boob, full of hatred and arrogance. I've checked my list twice, and you're firmly on the naughty side."

"Then so be it." Alexander Luthor turned to his men. "ATTACK!"

Santa pulled out a small communicator. "Elven soldiers, defend the North Pole!"

The war was on, and Pikachu drew the first blood, using Volt Tackle on Kris Kringle and sending the Jolly old man careening into a pile of empty present boxes. Santa tore the rodent off his chest and sent a blast of Christmas magic into Pikachu's stomach, causing the rat to fly off into the distance like Team Rocket.

Santa grabbed the candy cane of one of the fallen elf-soldiers—killed by a shot from Alan Quartermain's rifle—and ran into the fray.

"HO, HO, HO!" he snarled.

* * *

The Mosque of Red Blood in Qurac City—that's where the Frankincense supposedly was. The Mosque itself was one of the few things that had survived after Cheshire had destroyed the entire country a few years ago. Most of it got better, but not the city where this mosque was.

Robin had been able to conjure up a reason to be suddenly traveling to the Middle East—he'd told Bruce his cousin Bobby was stranded in Baghdad and needed to be rescued. Of course, he didn't tell Bruce that Bobby Drake was actually the fictional character Iceman in the X-Men comics, but letting the truth get in the way of a good lie was a bad idea.

Especially when the lie was more interesting.

_I mean, how awesome would it be_, Tim thought_, if Robin and Iceman were cousins?_

A noise of boots on stone nearby caught his attention, and Robin turned, drawing a birdarang and hurling in that direction. "Show yourself!" he demanded.

A black blur whirred out of the shadows and Robin found himself reeling as a fist slammed into his face and sent him careening back into one of the Mosque's walls. Robin glared up, focusing his vision on the cape-and-cowled figure… With boobs.

"Batgirl!" Robin gasped.

"You lied," she hissed. "Bruce believed you, but I saw through the lie."

"I have a good reason for it, Cass." Robin drew his bo-staff and began strafing around his opponent. "I have to get some items that will help me resurrect Conner. You liked Conner, right?"

"Of course," Cass said. "But he's dead. I thought… you learned your lesson. Do not try to bring back the dead."

"You've come back from the dead twice! You hung your mother's corpse over a Lazarus Pit." Robin hissed. "How can you stand there and lecture me on not bringing people back from the dead?"

"Because," Cass stepped into a fighting stance. "I'm… a better _fighter_ than you."

"Quoted for truth!" Barbara Gordon's voice crackled over Robin's communicator.

Robin shot a symbolic glare towards Metropolis and Babs' apartment and ran towards Cass, swinging his bo-staff low, trying to sweep her feet from underneath her. But Batgirl leapt and kicked him in the face and sending him staggering back into a marble pillar from the middle ages.

Cass slammed into the pillar with her foot—Robin would have been there if he hadn't moved out of the way. Robin turned and hurled a batarang at Cass, but the ninja rolled out of the way and tried to sweep his leg.

Robin jumped and tried to smack her over the top of the head with his staff, but Batgirl crossed both arms above her head and blocked it, then head-butted Robin's stomach with her pointy-eared cowl.

The Boy Wonder jerked back; the Kevlar in his suit protected him from being perforated by the cowl ears, but pain shot up through his abdomen. Cass had enough time to stand up and start wailing on Robin. For his part, Robin fought back, to the best of his ability, but it didn't do much good. Batgirl kicked him in the chest with a kick that could shatter a wooden door and sent him sprawling on the floor. Robin slammed into an ancient tile on the floor—and gasped when it broke. It was made of wood painted to look like the rest of the stone floor!

Robin tumbled into the hole and promptly fell unconscious.

What he didn't notice was that when he slammed into the floor panel, he inadvertently launched a piece of iron into the air that slammed into Batgirl's head. Someone with greater perception than a human being might have noticed Gabriel "Sylar" Gray, now an ally of Lou Alexander, hiding outside the Mosque, manipulating probability with the powers he'd gotten from some annoying punk of a kid he had killed on Earth-372. Sylar had really enjoyed opening that one's head up.

Robin would wake up later and find the Frankincense on a table behind him. He would then find Cass unconscious up stairs and assume that his awesome skills had allowed him to deliver a final blow to her even as he fell into the hidden door.

Later still, Sylar would approach and try and eat Cassandra's brain. He would promptly get kicked in the groin multiple times and cry profusely.

* * *

Santa hurled a sugarplum grenade that send Rorschach careening into Boy Blue, then ran, pulling out a Desert Eagle that Mrs. Claus had given him for Christmas one year and blasted at Alexander Luthor.

Luthor dodged the first two shots and vaporized the third with an anti-matter beam.

"It's no use," Luthor said, smiling. "Your elves are dying in scores, your reindeer have been subdued, and Mrs. Claus is already baking us cookies. Give it up, Kringle."

"NEVER!" Santa snarled, tearing his gloves off and smashing Luthor across the face. He fell on the red-haired man, furiously wailing on the extra-universal villain until teeth started coming out.  
**  
_BLAM_**

Quartermain's rifle blasted a round into Santa's jacket, sending the Jolly Saint Nick sprawling into the snow. Luthor stood over Saint Nick and smiled. "Kevlar?"

"Magically enhanced cotton," Santa answered. "No bullet can pierce it."

"Nonetheless, behold, Santa. You are defeated." Luthor bent down and lifted Santa off the ground with a single arm. "Of course, I won't kill you. Christmas could never be perfect without you, and no Earth could be perfect without a perfect Christmas."

"You glorious, evil, misbegotten cur!" Santa cried.

"Misbegotten?" Alex laughed. "I assure you I have a father," Alex said. "His name was Lex Luthor. He was his Earth's greatest hero, just as I'm this world's last hope."

Alex turned to Rorschach. "Take him to the dungeon."

Rorschach looked down at Santa. "Hurm. We don't have a dungeon. Obvious in hindsight."

* * *

Deep within the Batcave, the third Batman had just gotten back from space, investigating the destruction of the most recent Watchtower—and the one that blew up in Chapter One as well!

He had used his ability to Breathe in Space to retrieve the Black Boxes for both the Watchtowers, and was now going through the long and tedious process of having his computer decode and figure out who blew it up. He got a sense of déjà vu, recalling two years ago when Supermanboy Prime had been the culprit. Of course, since computer technology evolved so fast, it wouldn't take nearly as long to decode as it had during the Infinite Crisis.

Batman popped open a bag of potato chips and leaned back to watch his screen saver while he waited. Sure, he could breathe in space, but a man still has to eat!

Suddenly, a familiar rush of wind rustled the air of the Batcave, and Batman frowned, spinning the Bat-Chair around to confront the blue and red-clad figure hovering in front of him.

"Clark," Batman said, munching on one of the burnt chips. "What brings you here?"

Superman looked distressed, and hung his head low. "Bruce, I know this really isn't in your field of expertise, but I'm afraid that Santa Claus has been taken prisoner."

Batman's eyes narrowed. "What makes you think that?"

Superman landed and removed a small tape recorder from his belt, and pressed the play button. A distress cry erupted from the device's tiny speaker—an elderly female that Bruce instantly recognized as that of Mrs. Kris Kringle.

"_Please help us, Justice League. We're under attack by seven nasty individuals led by a man dressed in gold. I think Santa said his name is—BLEARGH!"_

The tape cut off.

"I'm afraid it's all tied together," Superman said. "The destruction of the Watchtower, the deaths of the Outsiders, the random appearances of things from other times and universes, Robin's mysterious disappearances as of late."

"You may be right," Bruce said. "But if it's a conspiracy this deep, perhaps we should call in Question from the _Justice League Unlimited_ universe. Either way, I'm too busy."

Superman scowled. "Bruce, I know you and Santa Claus aren't on the best of terms, but you have to put aside your differences and help us save Christmas. How else are people going to get their Wiis? Five hundred dollars on Ebay! It's ridiculous."

"Chris wants one, doesn't he?" Batman asked, referring to the son of Zod whom Superman and Lois had recently adopted.

Superman's head drooped. "Yeah. I'd buy him one myself but all my money is going to the legal battle against the Siegel family."

"I'm sorry, Clark, but the answer is still no. Do you know what happened to me all those years ago? Do you even have the faintest idea as to why I hate Santa Claus so much?"

"Not really, now that you mention it."

Batman stood up and shoved an accusatory finger in Superman's face. "Because, Clark, the Christmas when I was eight years old—the year my parents were _murdered_—I got nothing for Christmas but coal. Not a lump like normal kids, but a HUGE PILE OF COAL under my tree. Do you have _any_ idea how bad something like that can screw an eight year old kid up when he's just lost his parents? I spent years trying to convince myself that I was on the nice list. It took the **universe being destroyed** to get me to mellow out, and I will _never_ forgive Santa Claus for that."

Superman's expression didn't change perceptibly, but Bruce detected a well of melancholy behind them. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Bruce." He floated off the ground and began to back away.

"Keep investigating what happened with the Watchtower. By the way, I've heard rumors that Robin has been seen out with someone I don't know--a man a Guy Fawkes mask."

"Did you say a Guy Fawkes mask?" Batman said, his eyes widening as he thought back to what the Joker had said about the man in the Guy Fawkes mask.

"Yeah. You know anything about that?"

Batman turned and brought up the Wikipedia profile of a certain Wachowski brother's film. "I just might," Batman said. "I just might."

* * *

**Next Chapter: Batman vs Alan More!**


	3. Run, Run, Rudolph!

**Part Three: Run, Run, Rudolph!**

_**Somewhen**_

"_Go, my friend!" said Santa Claus, fighting off the effects of the drugs Quartermain had given him long enough to speak coherently. "Go give this to Batman, for only he can solve the mystery."_

_Rudolph took the note in his mouth, resisting the urge to do the reindeer thing and eat it. He turned, nuzzling Santa as if to ask him if he was certain._

_Santa nodded. "You must hurry."_

_Rudolph turned and stormed out of the dark place, and Santa heard the rush of wind overtake him as he fell back into a drug-induced stupor._

_His last coherent thought was an overwhelming dread that he had forgotten something._

* * *

**December 16th**

High atop a dark Tower north of London, lightning flashed across the sky as thunder boomed in the distance. One of the booms of thunder conceded with a much closer crack, the sound of a door being kicked open. Batman stormed into the Tower to confront the great and powerful bearded sorcerer.

Anywho, where was I?

Ah, yes.

"Come face me, you coward!" Batman bellowed. "I know you're in here."

The Bearded One appeared, melting through the floor in a cloud of arcane smoke. "What do you want, Dark Knight?"

"You claimed that on two occasions you met one of your own characters," Batman said, referring to the bisexual blond British bamboozler John Constantine. "I've been spying on you for quite some time, Bearded One. I know that you can conjure your mythical creations into the real world. Just like Hilary Clinton."

"But I've not done so in years," the Bearded One replied, hovering down to where Batman was. His fingers crackled with dark magic. "If you stand here and accuse me of such wizardry without any proof I shall have to destroy you, Dark Knight."

"In my will, I've left files to Barbara Gordon proving that it's your fault she's in a wheelchair."

"Bah, what could she possibly do?" The Bearded One asked.

"She's Oracle, you dolt. She could freeze all your assets. She could hack the internet and make you write articles of praise about Rob Liefeld. There is no end to the things Babs is capable of."

The Bearded One blinked, his face draining towards a pallor of worry.. "Fine, I'll hear you out, Dark Knight."

"Superman told me that Robin has been seen cavorting around with a man in a Guy Fawkes mask. And yesterday, the Joker told me that he was teleported into this universe by a man also wearing that mask. I doubt this is a coincidence."

"What does this have to do with me?" The Bearded One snarled. "I didn't invent the Guy Fawkes mask!"

"But you invented this!" Batman snarled, shoving a copy of _V for Vendetta_ into the Bearded One's face. "Your protagonist terrorizes London in a just such a mask. You must know something about this."

"I told you I know nothing!" the Bearded One bellowed, blasting Batman back into a wall with a burst of arcane magic. "I care not what Barbara Gordon discovers, I'm not going to let you sit here and defame my works like the Wachowski brothers and their ilk have done so many times."

Batman ran forward, hurling a pair of batarangs that the Bearded One blasted out of the air. Batman kicked the sorcerer while he was distracted and sent him careening into a nearby table full of spell books. Batman started to deliver a knockout attack when the Bearded One teleported behind him.

"Expelliarmus!" the wizard cried. The spell lashed out of the Bearded One's fingertips, sending Batman slamming into a potion mixing table. Glass beakers crashed against the floor and shattered.

A fireball slammed into the table where Batman had been; Batman hurled himself up over the wooden banister to a raised mezzanine in the room and started hurling bags of magic powder at their owner.

Some of them exploded on contact with the ground; others transmuted the ground to gold, and yet more became aardvarks. The Bearded One snarled in rage and summoned a demon familiar to attack, and Batman was sent flying back towards the window. He grabbed a nearby holy sword and stabbed the demon in the head.

Understandably, the demon wasn't too happy about this, but instead of lashing out in anger, it simply died.

"It seems we're evenly matched," the Bearded One said.

Batman just laughed. "You're forgetting one thing: I'm Batman. I can breathe in space."

"That accursed meme will never die!" the Bearded One snarled. Magic crackled from his finger tips and an freezing spell in the shape of an oriental dragon formed and started flying towards Batman. Batman dove out of the way as the dragon swooped down, and the spell slammed into the mirror behind him, traveling through and hitting the reflection of the sorcerer therein.

Immediately, the real-world counterpart froze solid.

"That could be useful," Batman thought aloud. "I want one."

Suddenly, Batman's comlink buzzed, and he glanced down to see that it was Bruce.

"Batman?" he answered."

"Batman," came the voice of Bruce Wayne. "It's Batman. Batgirl abandoned me after Robin left for the Middle East, said I was blind. I don't know where she went. But I've found something."

"What?"

"The man who killed the Outsiders—Lou Alexander—has an office on Kane Street. There's a photo of him here on the wall, and he's wearing a Guy Fawkes mask."

"Great Scott!" Batman in England cried.

"I know," said Batman in Gotham. "This is heavy."

"We'll need to let Superman know right away," Batman said. "And I'll need to get back to Gotham."

"Don't worry, I've already sent a replacement Watchtower up. Assuming it's not destroyed in the next five minutes, you can just teleport."

"Will do. Batman out."

Batman in England turned to the Bearded One. "I'm sorry for the intrusion. It appears as though you weren't responsible for this Guy Fawkes man after all. I'll pay the hospital bills and hire someone to silence Rob Liefeld's stupid rants about you. We'll never speak of this again."

The sorcerer shivered as he began moving his frozen mouth. "D-d-deal," he said.

* * *

**December 17****th**

Superman had his microscopic, telescopic, X-Ray, and several other types of vision scanning the arctic wasteland for Santa's home. Nothing. Wherever Santa's home was hidden, Superman couldn't find it. (Granted, Superman couldn't have blamed Santa after what happened last time, but that's a story for a different time. Let's just say it involved toothbrushes and a group of rather out-of-shape cosplayers.)

"I can't find it," Superman said. "Either he's moved somewhere else, or someone's put up a powerful magical barrier around the entire complex." Still, Superman couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched—not from one of his Kryptonian senses, but just an intuition he couldn't explain.

Batman sighed. "Hh. It will have to wait, then. Diana, I'll need a ride home on your invisible jet. Something here is interfering with my comlink to the Watchtower." After a few seconds of no response Batman glanced over at Wonder Woman, who stood in the arctic cold.

Shivering.

Batman goggled when he saw Diana's pale blue face and the icicles growing from. "Oh, right, I forgot you wear what amounts to a swimsuit."

"I-i-if I survive this," Wonder Woman said through chattering teeth, "I'm going to choke the patriarch who decided swimwear was appropriate combat attire."

"First you snap a neck, now you're threatening to choke," Batman sighed. "Will you ever learn your lesson, Diana?"

* * *

Alex Luthor sighed in relief. The magic-based cloaking device he'd found in Santa's basement had worked far better than the average charm. He'd been a little worried when Superman stopped two inches from his face, and would probably have to replace the outhouses that Wonder Woman had landed the Invisible Jet on, but otherwise, they didn't suspect a thing yet.

_Now if that imbecilic Boy Blunder would just hurry up with the artifacts I require._

* * *

**December 18th**

The house of a British Nobleman's family can be a bit tricky to sneak into sometimes, but Robin hadn't come all the way to England to turn back at the sight of a few hungry guard dogs.

Instead he threw his cape to distract the stupider ones and ran with all his might, hurling sleeping-gas grenades and other projectiles at the others. He quietly hoped that none of them died. The last thing he needed this close to Christmas was a lawsuit.

One of the dogs sank its teeth into the costume around his boots, and Robin snarled as pain shot up his leg. It didn't break the fabric or his skin, but it still smarted. He turned over and kicked the dog in the face repeatedly.

"Why do I feel like Michael Vick right now?" Robin asked himself.

The dog finally let go and tipped over, either unconscious or dead. Despite his best intentions, Robin half hoped for 'dead' because 'unconscious' meant that it would eventually wake up and try to eat him again.

Robin ran towards the house, slipping in through a window that he used his awesome skills to pick open. Inside, the coin sat on a display case. Robin slinked over and pulled out a razor-sharp batarang to cut open the glass.

"So you're here," came a lusty female voice behind him. "I didn't expect such a kinky costume. Rrrow."

Robin jerked his head, his eyes snapping wide open, to see a woman, perhaps in her mid thirties, wrapped in a bathrobe and standing in the doorway to the bathroom. He gulped. He'd thought the house was empty!

"Hurry up and get this over with, child. Before my husband gets back."

Robin felt his heart began to pound. _Think Tim, think. What would Bruce do in this situation._

He paused for a moment and mulled it over for a moment.

_Okay, I had definitely better _not_ do what Batman would._

"Gee, yeah," Robin said to the desperate British house wife. "I just remembered I left some, um… sparkling champagne in my car. Or whatever you British people drink."

"Oh, you have an American accent, that's so cute! New Jersey, right?" the woman trilled. "Can you do Bulgarian?"

"No! No, I assure you my accent is limited to what you hear right now!" Robin smashed the display case with his fist. "I'm taking this as payment for services rendered." He grabbed the coin and burst out the window. The small amount of blood the glass drew was invisible due to the redness of his mortified face.

Far away on a hillside, a figure dressed in white watched Robin burst through the window through a pair of binoculars. "Stealing my shtick, are you, Tim? This won't stand!"

* * *

**December 20th**

The crack of a whip resounded through Alex's camp at the North Pole. Snow had been cleared away, and the smoke stacks poured clouds of black lung disease into the air. The furnaces below were burning with all the coal that would have been given to all the boys and girls on Santa's naughty list.

Alan Quartermain approached his current boss, Alexander Luthor.

"Can I have my opium now?" he asked.

"Yes, yes," Luthor sighed, handing him a small bag. "But before you go shoot it up, you degenerate scum, give me a report on how things are going."

Alan sighed. "The elves are all locked up. Kovacs was right—there is no dungeon. I suppose Kringle didn't take any prisoners when he conquered the Martians. We converted the reindeer stables into a makeshift jail for now."

Luthor nodded, stretching out his hands and gently setting the intricate machine he had been tinkering with atop the North Pole, fastening it to the very top. The pole collected energy and ran down into the base below to power many of the toy making machines. Right now, all those were turned off. Luthor had a much grander use for Santa's technology.

"And what of the reindeer? Where did you put them?"

Alan Quartermain shrugged. "We just left them in the stables with the bloody prisoners. I'm not touching those filthy beasts."

"You left them in there!" Alex bellowed, knocking Quartermain down and grabbing the narcotics from his hands. "You ignorant foolishly foolish fool."

Luthor blasted off, arcing towards the prison, and Quartermain ran after him, more because he wanted the opium back than for any actual alarm over Luthor's words.

The two arrived at the stables minutes later, and Alex kicked the door open and ran in. Santa and the surviving War Elves were still locked away and shackled. But where Pikachu had stood guard before, he was now asleep in the corner, muttering his own name like the narcissistic fool Alex knew him to be.

"I don't see anything out of place," Quartermain said. "Except of course our distinguished guard asleep on the job."

Alex walked by the cells that contained reindeer one by one. "We have Dancer, and Dasher and Prancer and Vixen; Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen." Luthor turned to Quartermain. "But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all?"

Quartermain shook his head.

Alex snarled and spat. "Curse you for being from the Victorian era, Quartermain. I should never have put you in charge. The reindeer we seek only came about in 1939." Alex pulled out a communicator and activated it; it fed into all the loudspeakers around the North Pole complex.

"Attention, all loyal personnel, RUDOLPH HAS ESCAPED!" Alex bellowed.

* * *

Cyborg looked up at the sky and saw an elk-like figure streak over his head going faster than any airborne animal had a right to be going.

"Oh, man!" Cyborg began to cry. "Now I've been in this hole so long I'm hallucinating _**flying caribou.**_ Somebody please help me!"

At that moment, Risk walked into the crater and sat down on a piece of slate. "I would if I could, man," said the armless former hero. "I would if I could."

* * *

Alex ran to the North Pole and activated his machine, pulling on the Power Glove that allowed him to manipulate space and time to create his desired effects. "Rudolph will likely go to warn this world's corrupt superheroes. I must take drastic measures to keep them away as long as possible."

"Pika-Pii?" asked Pikachu.

"No, of course not," Alex spat. "I'll just have an old friend of mine pay them a little visit."

"Pika?"

"My good 'friend'—Supermanboy Prime."

* * *

Ah, Supermanboy Prime (also known as Superman Prime, Superboy Prime, Superbrat Prime, Emoboy von Doom, and many other names), who can forget him? Born on a Krypton doomed to be consumed by its own red sun, Prime was teleported to Earth in 1969. Upon his eighteenth birthday in 1985, a comet passed over Earth and unleashed his Kryptonian powers for the first time. There he was found by Earth-One Superman and taken to fight in the first Crisis. Clearly a teenager with no prior experience with his superpowers would make an incredible asset against the Anti-Monitor.

Unfortunately, all his family and friends died horrible deaths, so Supermanboy Prime went nuts and decided to become a mass murderer. Logic was never one of young Clark's strong points.

Two years ago Alex Luthor and Supermanboy Prime tried to make a perfect universe. They failed. Prime went on to become a member of the Sinestro Corps, led by a purple-skinned Space Hitler. Oddly enough, The Anti-Monitor, the very guy who murdered Supermanboy's friends and family, was one of his allies during his membership in the Corps. Life's funny like that.

At the moment, this villainous youth was cavorting about the Multiverse destroying planets that didn't particularly suit his ideas of what heroes should be.

"Ha! Your Superman is a girl!" Supermanboy laughed. "Don't make me laugh."

Superwoman of Earth-11 promtply smashed Supermanboy in the face and sent him careening into a building.

"What else would I be?" demanded Superwoman.

Suddenly, several more heroes appeared around her; Batwoman—an alternate Bruce Wayne rather than the SOJL member we met in chapter one; Green Lantern and Green Arrow, who were, oddly enough both women. Wonder Man, also know as Dane of the Manazons; and The Flash. She has two x chromosomes and runs really fast. Otherwise, she's just like Wally West.

"Wow," Supermanboy Prime sighed. "This universe isn't much for originality."

"Wanna bet!" cried Blue Beetle, swooping in on her airship and blasting Supermanboy with a grenade. "In this world, Booster Gold got shot in the face and I survived. How's that for a good and interesting difference?"

Supermanboy Prime yawned. "This world bores me."

Up into the air Supermanboy flew, then back down, slamming into the centre of the planet and plowing on through. He burst from the ground in the middle of Tiananwomen Square in China and off into space.

Earth-11 promptly exploded.

A beam lanced out of the wreckage and slammed into Supermanboy Prime, and he felt the very fabric of his existence crackling with energy, a searing pain arcing through him. He jerked and spasmed, and then blacked out. When he came to a few seconds later, he saw fifty-one copies of himself arcing out across the stars and vanishing, as if breaking through the barriers to other universes.

"What the hay?" he thought aloud.

He looked the other direction, following the trail of energy. "That beam came from New Earth. Someone there wants to party. I guess I can take some time out of my busy schedule of smashing planets and whining to join in. The heroes are still corrupt on that Earth anyway."

* * *

**December 23****rd**

**11:50 PM**

Batman hissed at the screen. The black box had finished being decoded, and the truth was staring Batman in the face.

The Watchtower had been blown up by a glowing golden man in a Guy Fawkes mask.

"Lou Alexander," Batman growled. "Superman was right. It's all tied together."

The Dark Knight got up, his cape fluttering as he stormed out of the Batcave, up the stairs towards Wayne Manor. He would sit in his study and brood for a while, then go philanthropize a bit. He'd leave the actual hero work to Bruce and Batman.

* * *

Just as the door to Wayne Manor slid shut, Batman pulled the Batmobile into the cave, parking it by the giant penny and running over two the computer.

"So Superman was right," Batman said, looking at the research that Batman had been doing. He pressed a few buttons and pulled all the files off on print outs, sent copies to the Watchtower, and published them on SD Cards, CDs, floppies, and a USB Flash drive.

Just in case.

Batman began sorting all the information into his utility belt, when he heard a set of jingling bells nearby. Soon footfalls—or more accurately hoof-falls came echoing up the way towards the command center parts of the Batcave. Batman drew a batarang. "Who's there?"

Suddenly a red light appeared in the distance, and Batman sighed and relaxed his guard. "Cyborg, you shouldn't do that."

No response came, and then Batman's eyes widened. _Wait a minute,_ he thought,_Cyborg is still buried in that hole until Ian Churchill's arm gets better!_

Batman drew up the Batarang again, only to see Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer come trotting up the car path, emerging from the shadows and going airborne to reach Batman.

"You!" Batman cried. "Your boss has a lot of nerve sending you to me after what happened thirty-two years ago!"

Rudolph made a sad caribou noise and began nuzzling Batman's side, his shiny red nose casting a crimson glow on the Dark Knight's cape.

"Rudolph…" Batman said, sitting down in the BatChair and petting the beast. "I'm sorry, I don't have any oats in my utility belt. I'll see if I can get Alfred to—"

Suddenly, he eyed a piece of paper sticking out of the reindeer's mouth. He removed it carefully and Rudolph seemed to nudge him to open it.

"What's this?" Batman opened the note. "It's from Santa."

_Dear Batman_

_I know you and I have never seen eye to eye. I know how much I hurt you the day I gave you coal for Christmas. I want to offer my profuse apologies and an explanation, Bruce, because this is not the season for strife. I should have sent this message years ago, but you were so busy fighting crime that I kept making excuses to put it off._

_Believe it or not, I didn't give you coal that year because you were on my naughty list. Not at all, Bruce. I gave you coal because Alfred forgot to pay the heating bill for Wayne Manor that month, and you both needed the pile of coal to keep you warm! I probably should have been clearer about that, in retrospect. I actually gave you a Rolls Royce, though you'd have to ask Alfred what happened to it._

_Now that this sordid business is out of the way, I need your help. We've been attacked up here in the frozen wastes of the Artic Circle. Rudolph knows the way to my house. I'm trapped here in the Reindeer Stables, but our enemy has sealed my cell behind a wall of outer space.  
_

_I need you, Bruce. Because you're Batman—and you can Breathe in Space._

_-Santa Claus_

_P.S. Alert the rest of the JLA, just in case you fail miserably._

Batman pulled off his cowl to wipe away the tears welling up in his eyes. All these years he thought he was on the naughty list—and now it just turned out that Santa was looking out for him.

Like a fat, bearded Bill O'Reily.

Batman clinched his fist, dropping the note on the floor of the Batcave. "Rudolph with your noise so bright—" Batman leapt into the air and landed on Rudolph's back, the reindeer straining under the weight of the aging superhero. "Let's go kick some arse tonight!"

Rudolph darted out of the Batcave and arced towards the sky, blasting off at mach ten with Batman clinging to the reindeers back, the wind whipping his cape.

"Don't fret, Santa!" Batman cried. "I'm on my way!"

* * *

_Santa snapped awake, his eyes wide, finally realizing what he had left out of the note. "Of course!" he said aloud. "I forgot to tell Batman _**who**_ the villain is!"_

* * *

**Disclaimer:** Batman did not fight **Alan Moore**, the comic book writer. He contended with the powerful sorcerer **Alan _More_**. Alan More is not a real person, so I have therefore not violated any rules.

Sorry for the shortness of this chapter, I've not had as much time to write as I had hoped. The finale will probably come after Christmas.

**Next Chapter: ** **Robin vs The Catholic Church! **


	4. FiftyTwo ShakeUp

_Beta and Guest Writer: Legend Maker_

_The fact that this did not come out before Christmas is a parody of the delays on the final chapter of the real Infinite Crisis. Honest._

* * *

**Part Four: Fifty-Two Shake-Up**

**December 24****th**

**Vatican City, Rome **

You'd think it would be relatively easy for Robin to rationalize doing a minor bit of harm to the Roman-Catholic Church, especially if said harm was in the service of a greater good. It wasn't like the church had clean hands anyway—there was plenty of dirt in their history that one could use to quash any guilt.

Like the Crusades. Or the Inquisition, which had less to do with heretics than with stealing property from Jews.

Never could find enough excuses to massacre Jews, until Hitler finally told a whopper too big for even the world, with all its small-minded, smug, self-righteous, cruel and sadistic people to swallow. How 'bout them National Socialists?

Or how they pretty much destroyed the Native Americans and stole everything from them. Or the South American people. Or the black people of Africa. And what probably would have happened to Asia if Japan hadn't beat them to the punch for the most part.

Or all the pedophiles that had snuck into the clergy.

The only logical conclusion is this: Clearly God is evil and deserves to die!

Wait, this isn't a Phillip Pullman fanfic? Oops.

The point was, despite all that, Robin had still felt somewhat bad breaking into the Vatican, sneaking through its hallways, avoiding guards and locating a series of increasingly more concealed doors until he'd found the stairway down into the room he now entered: a top-secret Vatican Bunker.

He'd learned about it on the Internet.

There wasn't much to say about it: it was made of stone, had a series of large columns running its length, and had enough light from some indeterminable source to see well enough.

Oh, and its walls were covered with wooden support beams. Far too many, actually. It wasn't like the room had any Feng Shui to begin with, but the amount was just ridiculous. Someone had clearly spent nights sweating over the concept of being buried alive.

There was only one exit, at the other end of the room. After checking for trip wires, floor switches disguised as stones, trigger lasers, security cameras, and the like, Robin headed across the room and entered.

At the end of that room stood the Myrrh, a small metal box placed on a simple stone platform.

And between it lay dozens of blades that swept from the ceiling and stabbed from the wall, tiny platforms nestled between them in which razor sharp poisoned spikes and jets of flame shot from the ground and walls at random intervals. Buzzsaws fired from hidden launches from various parts of the walls and ceilings, effortlessly passing into slits on the other side of their launching path, and long stone balls on metal chains swung around and in between the blades in perfect, repeating symmetry. The entire floor save the small platform Robin had entered on was covered in boiling, red-hot magma.

Robin immediately burned to death from the unbelievable heat coming off the lava. It was amazing he'd actually made it into the room…

Oh wait right, this is a piece of fiction. What's convection?

Still, there were all the traps Robin would have to avoid with precise, split second timing, with no extra lives or reset button if one caught him, and even considering the unreliable nature of death in this world, it would probably take at least a year before he popped up out of his grave.

Robin removed a launcher from his utility belt, aimed, and fired, launching a small metal dart across the room where it thudded lightly into the box the Myrrh was in, before removing another small device from his tools and pressing a button at the right time, activating the powerful magnet in the dart and pulling the box across the deadly gauntlet and into his waiting hands.

No, I don't know what gravity is. Please explain it to me.

Robin turned around, not even singed, and headed back out through the door.

"STOP RIGHT THERE."

Robin did, looking at the young man in front of him, clad in a long white shirt, black chain mail pants, and carrying a metal staff with a cross on the end.

"…Oh no." Robin said. "You."

"You did not expect this? Your devil-directed quest ends here, Robin. How dare you defile this…you do not look frightened. You really should look frightened." The cross-wielder said.

"…I didn't mean it in fear. I meant it in that I have completely blanked on who you are."

The young man's eyes bulged.

"I AM KID CRUSADER! SCOURGE OF ALL EVIL! I BATTLED YOUR CORRUPT, DEVIL-HABORING TEAM BUT A FEW MONTHS AGO!"

"Actually it was ten years. I mean…oh. Right. It _was_ a few months ago this time."

"HOW DARE YOU MOCK ME DEVIL-WORSHIPPER! YOU WILL BURN!"

Robin stared.

"KID CRUSADER!" Kid Crusader 'helpfully' reminded.

"Oh right…look Kid, I'm not knocking you, but seeing how I didn't retain the slightest amount of memory of you, how dangerous can you be?"

"Your folly, demonspawn. I alone am a holy terror…and I am not alone…" Kid Crusader smirked triumphantly.

As they came from the shadows…which didn't hide them very well as a lot were wearing white, mixed with some blacks and golds, red crosses on their streamlined, form fitting white robes and on the masks covering their faces. Hundreds and hundreds of them, coming from every part of the room.

"Behold, the greatest of all our ranks in subtle skill, the elite of the Roman-Catholic Church Ninjitsu Unit. Your life ends here." Kid Crusader grinned.

Robin stared. _Vatican Ninjas?_

"Awwwwwww…I was hoping for a "Holy Ninjas, Batman!" before my very much holy ninjas filled you full of holes." Kid Crusader said.

Robin continued staring.

"MY NAME IS KID CRUSADER!"

Still nothing.

"WHAT?"

"…Ninjas?" Robin said, as he continued staring dumbly. "Vatican…NINJAS…now…this is…I'm…okay, the only way this is even CONCIEVABLY possible is that you were a clan of ninjas that were converted during the abortive influx of Portuguese missionaries during the time of the Shogunate, which, considering that was followed by a purge of all Christians on the islands…"

"That would mean that any remaining Catholics would have to, oh I don't know, DISAPPEAR? If only there were people devoted to the art of stealth! A hypothetical class of people, hired as assassins and saboteurs, perhaps you could call them by the Japanese word for invisible." Kid Crusader said.

"…okay Altar Boy…"

"KID CRUSADER!"

"Whatever. You have a point, but not much of one." Robin said, as he pulled out his staff. "All I know is this: if I'm taking down Vatican Ninjas, this is officially the best Christmas ever."

"KILL THE INFIDEL!" Kid Crusader roared.

"I'm Lutheran, you jackass!"

Kid Crusader blinked. "KILL THE HERETIC!" He pointed at Robin, and the ninjas surged forth, light glittering off their blades…

And Robin swung his staff up and down, slamming it onto the ground as hard as he could.

The ninjas all fell from their leaps like they'd been struck down by God himself, crashing down onto the ground in large, unmoving heaps.

"…Oh man. Conservation of Ninjitsu is even worse than I thought." Robin said. Kid Crusader looked like he was going to have a stroke, his mighty league of assassins all cut down by one blow that hadn't even HIT them.

"WHAT DEVIL-GIVEN POWER IS THIS!?!?!?"

Robin chuckled. "It's just a _trope_. The** Law of Inverse Ninja Strength**, or Threat 1/N, where N number of Ninjas. In this case it was so diluted that the minor shockwave from my ground strike knocked them all out."

"…you're making that up." Kid Crusader said.

"No really. It's why Batgirl was pretty much invincible until she joined the League of Assassins. All the other ninjas were robbing her of her Ninjitsu powers. Either that, or drugs really do rot your brain."

"I thought that was because the writer was stupid."

"No no, that's the fourth-wall breaking reason. This is the rational, later writer's retcon." Robin said.

"Ah…uh…THEN I SHALL SMITE YOU MYSELF!" Kid Crusader said as he swung his staff up.

"Look Christian Lad, I think we ought to take a page from the Bible and turn the other chee-" THWACK

Robin was smacked in the face by one of the ninjas. Robin beat him up and threw him towards Altar Boy… I mean, Kid Crusader, who stepped out of the way.

"POWER OF GOD INFUSE ME!!!!!!!!" Kid Crusader bellowed, and suddenly his staff burst into flame as radiant white energy began swirling around the teenage zealot.

"…Oh no, not the Level In Badass. Not For Captain Catholic." Robin whined.

"MY NAME IS KID CRUSADER. REMEMBER IT, SO YOU CAN TELL LUFICER WHO SENT YOU!" Kid Crusader bellowed.

And the ground exploded beneath him as he flew at Robin, his blazing body and staff smashing across Robin's chest and sending him flying even as Kid Crusader zapped past him, and then in a bullet-time ballet stopped and spun back towards Robin, smashing him across the room and through one of the stone pillars, and even as Robin exited that Kid Crusader was next to him again as he split his staff in two and spun, smashing Robin with repeated blows in the helicopter whirl and sending him flying up high as Kid Crusader blazed after him, his staff splitting into ten pieces and flying away and zapping back, smashing a series of arcing blazing lines across Robin before they flew up and re-assembled in Kid Crusader's hands as he lanced down and smashed Robin into the ground, the ground exploding and sending Robin flying back up into the air as Kid Crusader backflipped off the impact, braced himself against another pillar, and flew through the air, smashing past Robin as an explosive wave of holy fire blazed in his wake and caught Robin, the blasts smashing across his body and sending him flying back into the middle of the room, bouncing off the floor again as Kid Crusader bounced off the opposing wall, slashing past Robin in another fluid bullet-time motion, and then landed and swung his staff up and down as Robin's whole body was at the center of a massive explosion as Kid Crusader's eyes burned and a red cross blazed on his back and in fire all around the room.

That massive run-on sentence slammed into Robin, and he hit the ground, just as the energy left Kid Crusader. He turned and looked at his fallen enemy.

All was silent.

And then Robin got up. A white energy rope burst from the wall, tripped him, and vanished.

Robin muttered and got up again.

"…wow, I actually feel better." He commented.

Now it was Kid Crusader's turn to stare in complete, stupefied silence.

Then again, silence didn't stay with these types for long.

"HOW! _**HOW!?!?!??!?!**_ THAT ASSAULT IS FROM THE LORD ALMIGHTY HIMSELF! IT WOULD HAVE BROKEN NERON!"

"Uh…good thing I got two wafers for communion this week?" Robin said lamely.

"YOU WILL NOT DEFY ME AND MY FAITH! YOU WILL SUFFER NO MATTER WHAT INFERNAL TRICKS YOU HAVE!" Kid Crusader screamed, as he started swinging his staff again.

"Hey wait you…!" Robin yelled.

As Kid Crusader smashed the only remaining stable platform that was left in the room after his ridiculous pastiche of SNK SDM's and the roof proceeded to cave in.

Robin recoiled from the falling wreckage (fortunately for him it was a rather localized cave in, and by localized I mean it only fell on Kid Crusader's head) and then coughed as he tried to wave the dust away.

"If only those who would warp and abuse faith would more often be so suitably hoisted by their own petard." Robin commented.

"YOU FOOL!" Kid Crusader yelled as he re-appeared, surrounding by the debris he had dodged and avoided. "WHAT IS FALLING DEBRIS TO ONE WHO HAS THE POWER OF…!!!!"

And then a golden Buddha lost and buried centuries ago and finally dislodged from its long time resting place fell from the ceiling and ker-whammed itself onto Kid Crusader's head. The zealot collapsed with a light groan.

"…I think I'd better leave now." Robin said, as he turned and headed back through the entrance he'd come through earlier. "Y'know, that was a ridiculous fight. What's sad is, if DC made half as much sense nowadays, they might actually be competitive with Marvel."

And Robin headed off, leaving behind the bested form of Choir Boy.

"KID CRUSADER!"

Whatever.

* * *

Arcing through the sky at ten times the speed of sound, Batman found it a bit difficult to reach to his belt and find his JLA communicator without having the wind rip his arm off. But he eventually managed it, and pulled the device to his mouth. "Batman to the Justice League. Come in Justice League." 

The voice of Black Canary—the JLA's current leader—crackled over the device. "Batman, what's going on? Why are you treating your com like an old fashioned CB radio?"

"Moving… at mach ten…," Batman said. "Blood rushing to buttocks. Cannot think terribly clearly. Must talk like.. cliché comic book character. Over."

"Mach ten?" Canary sounded surprised. "Where are you going?"

"The North Pole. Dinah, tell Bruce, Clark, John, Jefferson, Diana, Bruce, Wally, Mari, Kendra, and John to get here as fast as possible. We're facing a new villain called Lou Alexander. I don't know what his goals are, but it involves Santa Claus and turning Robin evil."

"Again!?"

"I know, I know." Batman sighed. "Tell the JLA to follow my signal or otherwise Christmas could be ruined—for everyone."

"Great Scott, Bruce. It's Christmas Eve!" cried Black Canary. "I'll get Bruce, Clark, John, Jefferson, Diana, Bruce, Wally, Mari, Kendra, and John to get moving, and I'll contact Karen and tell her to send the JSA as well. No villain with an oddly familiar name is going to ruin Christmas on my watch."

Batman clicked the communicator off. He silently wondered why the fact that Connor Hawke and Green Arrow were both dead hadn't already ruined Christmas in the eyes of Black Canary.

* * *

Incidentally, the ability of the JLA to mobilize was far greater than Batman's ability to ride a flying reindeer at mach ten, and so, they got there about five minutes after Batman did. Not only the JLA, but the Justice Society of America as well—the first superhero team that had disbanded during the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, but got back together in the late 20th century. They had recently had a membership drive, recruiting legacy heroes such as Earth-22 Superman, Mr. America, Judomaster, and Starman, among others. 

Their current membership was 583 and growing.

The approximately 600 heroes gathered outside the gates to the North Pole. Batman bristled at the amount of power. Some of the people there had had never even seen before. One of them was a girl wearing a purple hooded cloak, purple bodysuit, with black gloves and boots. Batman would certainly never let anyone like _that_ patrol around in his town. She'd spoil everything.

Batman surveyed the area where Rudolph had dropped him off. It was the same place Clark had taken them a few days ago, but now, black smoke seemed to be pouring from nothing, as if great furnaces had been lit inside a cloaking field.

Wonder Woman—this time clad in full amazon body armor with a built-in heating system—approached Batman and Superman. Superman glanced down at Rudolph, and the Reindeer backed away.

"How are we going to get in here?" Wonder Woman asked.

"I've got an idea," Superman said, "but it's kind of radical. A cloaking field basically is a lie, right? It tells people that something which is there is not. So if we wrapped your Golden Lasso around the cloaking field, it would have to tell us the truth."

Batman blinked. "Clark, that was brilliant!"

"But my lasso is only thirty feet long!" said Wonder Woman. "There's no way we can wrap the whole thing around a huge North Pole."

At this point, several of the smarter members of the DC pantheon approached, including Michael Holt (Mister Terrific) and John Henry Irons (Steel). Together with Batman, they began putting their brains together to figure out how to remedy their problem.

_Dooo Dooo Doo Dudu Doo Doo Doooo_, began the Jeopardy music.

* * *

Unfortunately for Alex Luthor, isolated inside the North Pole complex, he didn't overhear the conversation of DC's Big Three, nor the plans of their greatest minds. He was too busy fighting off Little Boy Blue—who, as it turned out, was the real traitor rather than Pikachu. 

Alan Quartermain blasted his rifle at Boy Blue, but the fabled horn blower dodged out of the way and smacked the opium addict with the hilt of his sword.

Rorschach pulled a rocket launcher from Santa's store and blasted Boy Blue off a battlement, where he fell and landed flat in the snow.

Luthor realized that it wasn't a rocket launcher, but a bazooka that wrapped presents with the touch of a trigger. Boy Blue was down below the hastily-erected fortress, unconscious when Alex got there. Pikachu was by his side, while Quartermain and Psycho Pirate began interrogating Sinbad to make sure the mythical sailor was loyal.

"Who sent you?" Alex barked.

"That's classified Fabletown information. The sheriff will tear me to pieces if I reveal anything, and I assure you that's a fate far worse than anything you can pull off."

"Blast!" Alex cried, eyeing the growing number of heroes outside his gates. (The JSA had swelled another 200 members since they arrived at the North Pole.) "Pikachu, finish him off. I must attend to the JLA."

Alex took off, and Pikachu moved closer to the tied-up fable.

Suddenly Boy Blue's eyes snapped open, and he vanished from within the wrapping-paper restraints, appearing a few feet away. His sword lashed out.

_**SNICKER SNACK!**_

Pikachu flew backwards, his head and torso separating as they flew through the air. "Piii." Said the rodent as it fell and died.

"NO!" Alex snarled. He darted over towards where Boy Blue was standing, but the fable simply said a word into his Blue Cloak and vanished from Alex's sight. Alex stumbled forward, kneeling in the bloodstained snow and picking up the two halves of Pikachu. "PIKACHUUUUUUUUUU!" Alex cried, energy crackling across his body.

_This wasn't supposed to happen._

Alex began to sob_. I picked the wrong one to condone… and the wrong one to condemn_. Now his ally was dead and the traitor had escaped.

"Everyone who crosses me will pay for this!" Alex snarled, turning to the Justice League and the growing Justice Society. "Starting with those heroes! I just wish that Drake boy would get here soon with the Holy Items."

* * *

Alexander Luthor grabbed the glove that hooked up to the North Pole machine. His idea was simple: Destroy the heroes one by one until they got scared and ran away. Dan DiDio used a similar stratagem, except that he was trying to scare away certain groups of fans instead of the heroes themselves. 

He walked to the gates, opened them, and picked a hero nobody would miss at first, just to break the ice.

"Wonder Woman should do," Alex said. "She herself admits that her action figures never sell as well as those of Batman or Superman."

Unfortunately, Luthor forgot to check to see whether the glove was set to 'vaporize'; it wasn't. It was still on the "Quantum Split" setting that he had used to get Supermanboy Prime's attention. (Speaking of Supermanboy Prime, where was he? He should be on the New Earth Universe by now. How long could it take to travel from one infinitely large empty space to another infinitely large empty space?)

Regardless, the end result was this: the beam lanced out and slammed into Wonder Woman. She cried out, and then… simply fractured, 51 alternate clones spewing forth from the original.

Many were similar, such as the Wonder Woman of the New Frontier Universe, and the Wonder Women of Earth-1 and Earth-2. Some were quite different, such as the dead skeleton of Dane of the Manazons, Wonder Man. Nonetheless, nearly all of them had one thing in common.

"LASSSOS!" Batman, Mr. Terrific, and Superman all exclaimed at once.

Luthor blinked. _Lassos? Why are lassos a good thing?_

Flash quickly answered his question, darting around the North Pole complex cloaking field in light speed, tying the lassos of the 52 unconscious and/or dead Wonder Women together into a huge rope that surrounded the entire base.

Superman's theory proved correct: The cloaking device shorted out, forced to stop lying about what was sitting there at the North Pole.

The heroes stared blankly at their unmasked foe.

"Great Hera!" said Wonder Woman of New Earth, getting up and rubbing her head. "Our enemy is none other than Alexander Luthor."

Power Girl flew up and grabbed the golden-clad would-be savior by his shirt. "You've got a lot to answer for!" she hissed. "My boob hole has shrunk thirty-nine percent since you and your little brat changed history, and that can only mean one thing!"

"Dale Eaglesham is a more competent pencilier than Ed Benes or Michael Turner?" Alex asked.

"Well, yes, but it also means it's all your fault!" Power Girl threw Alex into the snow. "Besides, you killed a lot of people. That makes you fair game."

Power Girl's eyes began to crackle with heat vision energy, but suddenly a fist slammed into her face and she fell, slamming hard into the snow-and-ice covered ground. Power Girl looked up, as did the other mass of heroes. (The Justice Society had over 1500 members by this point.)

All of them gasped, because 52 teenagers floated above them.

Fifty-Two copies of Supermanboy-Prime.

The sadistic teenager smiled. "I got your message, Alex. I got it loud and clear."

Alex Luthor's heart turned to ice. He'd forgotten how wicked Supermanboy had become, and began to wonder whether summoning him—let alone 52 of him—was a good idea. He would no doubt demand that Alex restore Earth-Prime to him.

"You know the drill, Clark," Alex said. "Stall the heroes while I await the moment we can create the perfect Earth."

Supermanboy Prime—the one that seemed to be the leader—licked his lips. "It will be my pleasure."

The Justice Society and JLA charged forward, the flight-enabled heroes arcing skyward to face down the 52 Kryptonians. The legion of Supermanboys charged as well, and chaos soon erupted.

But chaos would give Alex all the time he needed.

* * *

Earth-22 Superman and ten different Wonder Womans (Wonder Women?) all charged towards the nearest Supermanboy Prime. The over-powered Kryptonian psychopath snarled something about all those heroes being stupid and weak. 

Eleven fists promptly slammed into his mouth. (And if you think that defies the laws of physics, please recall that Supermanboy himself altered history.. by _punching it_.)

A furious battle broke out, fists and legs flying at large percentages of lightspeed as that Supermanboy clashed with his six opponents.

The other 51 Supermanboys flew into the fray, randomly killing any weak hero stupid enough to cross their paths. But the Justice Society's swelling ranks kept a steady flow of reinforcements to the side of the good guys, and with over 1500 already fighting, the forces seemed almost even for now.

Stargirl and Grace Choi (newly resurrected) began furiously attacking their foe, Stargirl using her gravity rod to mess up Supermanboy's flight path as Grace sat on his shoulders and furiously pounded the top of his head.

Not far from there, Wildcat and Jay Garrick helped three incredibly powerful young rookie heroes beat the stuffing out of another Supermanboy. One of them, wearing a green dress, kicked Supermanboy into the air, where he was promptly hit by an energy beam from Alan Scott.

Alan, Jay, and Wildcat all surrounded the three young girls. "You three are great! What are your names?"

"My name's Blossom," said the girl in red. "These are my sisters Bubbles and Buttercup and we're—"

"New members of the JSA," Alan said, handing them three JSA communicators.

Not far from there, a psychedelically painted van tore through a group of zombies cosplaying as Marvel Comics heroes that had joined the fray, apparently having gotten lost on their way to a convention.

A large brown Great Dane and four teenagers piled out. "Like, Zoinks, man, this has gotten way too crazy for us, Scoob."

"Reah, Raggy."

The other human male of the group, a blond man in a white shirt and blue ascot, shook his head. "We can't just leave this unsolved. Let's split up gang."

"Fred, this is no time to split up," the nearby purple-clad red-head said.

"Hey you!" Shouted Starman of Earth-22, flying over towards the odd quintet. "I know you guys! You solve mysteries, right?"

"Reah!" said the dog.

"Wow," Starman thought aloud. "Either I'm crazier than I thought I was, or that dog just talked to me."

"Oh, that's just Scooby," the tall male in the green shirt said.

"Do you guys have any supervillain-smashing credentials?" Starman asked. "I'm in a really good mood today, by the way. It's almost Christmas and the day after Christmas is Wednesday, which means I get sloppy joes. It's like two Christmases at once."

Fred eyed the large-universe-clad superhero oddly. "Well, we did help Batman and Robin take down the Joker and the Penguin a couple times."

"Wow, you went up against the Joker and lived!" Starman gasped. "I knew you guys were great." He handed the five JSA communicators. "Welcome to the JSA, gang!"

On the other side of the battle, Flash and Green Lantern went against. Supermanboy Prime and a strange incarnation of Santa Claus—one that had machine guns and machetes as weapons.

"You know, I'm definitely not telling my kids about this," Wally West said as he dodged bullets. "I know the idea of getting a lump of coal is a bit strange, but at least it won't put them in mortal terror."

Green Lantern blasted the Santa away and then hacked uselessly at Supermanboy Prime's invulnerable flesh.

"Flash, this isn't our Santa. It's the Santa of Earth-31, the Dark Knight Returns universe."

"Hos hos hos!" Cried Santa, pouncing on Green Lantern and beating the snot out of him. GL stabbed the psychotic Santa with a green-energy sword and threw him off.

"Are you dense?" Santa demanded. "Are you retarded or something? I'm the Dadgum Jolly Saint Nick!"

Green Lantern arched an eyebrow, while Flash punched Santa-31 in the face and tore the magic bag of presents from Santa's bandolier.

"Hold Supermanboy still for a minute, I'm going to make him pay for turning Bart into an emo adult, just like I made Inertia pay for getting him killed."

* * *

Robin's snowmobile flew airborne over the glacier and arced towards the North-Pole meeting point where Lou Alexander had instructed him to come. The bag containing the Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh was tucked securely into the compartment on the back of the vehicle. 

The snowmobile slammed into the ground and kept going; Robin saw Lou Alexander standing not far up ahead and slowed down. Robin realized that not far, smoke was billowing from strange buildings, and a huge battle involving super powers was going on down below.

"I got the items, Lou," Robin said, and handed Lou the bag. "Now bring me back Conner. Pretty please."

Lou took the bag and pressed a button, causing a tall slender candy-cane striped pole to emerge from the ground with a metallic head at the top. Alex removed a strange machine the size of a basketball from the top.

"TIM! NOOO!"

Robin jerked his head towards the site of the big battle to see Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman standing in front of him, glaring at Lou Alexander as though he were some long-dead foe returned to cause them harm.

"That's not who you think it is," Batman said. "Robin, don't give him what he wants from you. His promises are lies—just like the cake!"

"Robin has already giving me everything I need," Lou said, holding up the small mechanical device. A pair of compartments opened and in inserted the Myrrh and Frankincense. Several slots opened on top, and Lou inserted the Holy Coins one at a time.

Suddenly, a brilliant flash of light surrounded them, and Robin fell on his butt. When the light vanished, Lou Alexander was gone. In his place:

"ALEXANDER LUTHOR!" Robin cried. "I should have known it was you, you fiend. You're not really going to bring Conner and my parents back—you were just going to use me to alter history again."

Luthor looked over at him and shrugged. "Actually, I was going to bring them back. I mean, creating a perfect Earth and resurrecting the father and best friend of one of it's greatest heroes aren't really mutually exclusive goals, you know."

"I knew it!" Robin growled. Then he blinked. "Wait, what?"

"I said, I was actually going to resurrect them. It won't cost me anything and you have been a faithful idiot."

"Don't listen to him!" Wonder Woman said. "I know he's lying. I'm the spirit of truth, remember."

Superman frowned. "No, actually, Diana, I can hear Luthor's heartbeat. He's really being upfront about this one."

Batman smacked himself in the face. "Clark," he growled.

Superman scratched his head and smile nervously. "Oh, right, sorry."

Luthor shrugged. "It doesn't matter anyway. He hovered up and put the machine back on top of the North Pole. "This device is a brand new model of my Universal Tuning Fork that I used during the Infinite Crisis."

"Impossible!" Batman said. "It's the size of a basketball."

"You fool!" Alex said. "On Earth Prime, computer power doubles ever eighteen months. But here in the DCU, it doubles every five minutes. A computer the size of a basketball is all I need with today's technology!"

"And what good does it being here at the North Pole cause you?" Batman demanded. "Why now, why ruin Christmas for your mad schemes?"

"Every year," Luthor began a long-winded expository speech, "at the stroke of midnight Christmas Day, all the magicians and cosmic entitles that call Earth home relinquish the majority of the magic to Santa Claus so that he can make and deliver presents to all the world before the kiddies wake up. I intend to harness that magic and use it to alter history. But for that, I needed some Christmas artifacts in my machine. I had Robin here collect the most powerful of them all."

Robin frowned. "And here I thought the worst case scenario was that you were a cheapskate antiquities collector with a flare for the dramatic."

Wonder Woman stepped forward. "Alex! We'll never let you get away with this."

Alex Luthor laughed. "What? You think I'd tell you my entire plan if I thought you still had an opportunity to stop it? Comparing me to the great villains, I'm Ozymandias, not Dr. Drakken. I already did it—five minutes ago. In fact, you just watched me, so the idea that you think you could stop me is pretty puzzling."

Superman blurred forward, ready to punch Alex and tear the machine from the North Pole.

But before he got there, the clock struck midnight. Aurora Borealis surged, colors swirling around and arcing down into the machine. It began glowing brightly, and the magic beams slammed into Superman and sent him careening into a glacier.

"Yes!" Alex cried. "Yes! I'm experiencing pure, untamed joy and loving every minute of it! The world will soon by mine!"

Robin stared at the surging magical energy and fell to his knees. Some common clichés rushed through his mind, and he settled on the one he thought most appropriate: "What have I done?"

* * *

"Congratulations, Hamtaro, you've just become a member of the JSA!" 

The small hamster took the communicator and smiled.

* * *

Batman—not the Batman who had confronted Luthor at the North Pole pole, but the one who had rushed off to help Santa, kicked down the stable door. "Santa!" he cried. Then he remembered that Santa's cell was surrounded by outer space and therefore, nobody could hear him scream. 

Batman took a step into the stables, when Rorschach suddenly came out of the closet nearby. "Hurm. End of the line," he said. "Obvious in hindsight."

"Kovacs, let me through or I'll make you eat the ink in that mask of yours."

"Hurm. Unlikely." Rorschach stepped forward, punching at Batman. Batman blocked and tried to parry, but Rorschach counter parried and hit Batman in the face. Batman kneed him in the stomach and lunged forward, beating him with a flurry of punches. Rorschach stepped back and kicked Batman in the groin—which didn't hurt as bad as falling from three stories did, but was still rather painful—and grabbed a wooden plank from the wall to smack Batman across the head. The Dark Knight moved in, grabbing and immobilizing Rorschach's arm and delivering a powerful blow to the face.

"Hurm. Should have seen that coming," Rorschach said. "Obvious in hindsight."

* * *

"Congratulations, Chuck Noris. You've just been accepted into the JSA." 

Chuck Noris shook his head. "No. I accepted you."

* * *

Little Boy Blue ran forward, bouncing off Chuck Noris's head and laying his sword into one of the Supermanboy-Prime duplicates. His sword flashed.  
_  
__**SNICKER-SNACK!**_

That Supermanboy fell, sliced in half. The half that contained the head took off the ground and flew towards Chuck Noris, knocking the elderly martial artist down and continuing on. Eventually he would bleed out and die, but until then it was still a threat.

"Say," Alan Scott said, "How would you like to join the JSA? We're on a membership drive right now."

* * *

Kryptonians and magic don't really mix. It's not so much any natural aversion to magic—it's just that magic negates the supernatural advantages that Kryptonians have. A magic sword cuts a Kryptonian and a human just the same. Consequently, Santa's magic bag of presents can entrap a Kryptonian just as well as it can a human. 

Flash grabbed one of the Supermanboys in said bag, and began running at light speed, all over the world.

"Here's some Christmas presents!" Flash said as he scooped up a large chunk of Russia's nuclear arsenal, armed it, and dumped it into the bag. He grabbed it and kept running, darting through the Amazon Rainforest and scooping up a school of piranha as he darted along the river. "Now that your flesh is good and cooked, here are some friends to share the feast with."

Supermanboy-Prime screamed some obscenities from within the bag as the fish began tearing at his singed flesh.

Flash ran on, throwing in any random barbed object he could find, eventually tossing a certain hotel heiress and her best friend in as well. "NOT THAT!" Supermanboy-Prime cried. "Anything but them!"

Flash smiled and ran on, grabbing a few choice television personalities and a rather large group of porcupines to stuff in the bag as well.

"Say uncle!" he said.

"UNCLE! UNCLE!" Supermanboy-Prime whined from within Santa's bag. "UNCCULL"

"Uncool?" Flash said. "Yes, you are very uncool. I can fix that."

He promptly darted by the Flash Museum and grabbed one of Captain Cold's freezing guns setting it to 'explode' and tossing it in the bag. "Now you're cool."

* * *

Batman slammed Rorschach against the walls. Rorschach snarled and began wailing on the much-taller Batman's face, having to jump to reach it. They both fell backward and slammed into one of the cell doors—and immediately, it broke, shattering inwards; suddenly, there was vacuum. Batman looked around, and realized that he was in space. 

"It's okay," he thought. "I'm Batman, and I can breath in space."

Rorschach was not so lucky, however, and he went tumbling off into the distance, slowly dying as he tumbled. Batman felt sorry for him, but couldn't help him at this point. He looked up and he saw Santa, chained to an asteroid not far from where he was. Batman pulled two cans of Bat-Shark Repellant from his belt and began spraying them, using the aerosol repellant as a propellant, sending him self arching towards the asteroid.

He arrived minutes later, pulling out a Batarang and using it to slice the chains off of Santa. "It's okay," he said. "I'm here. I got your message."

Santa hugged him. "Thank you, Bruce. Thank you so much!"

* * *

Batman and Santa ran out of the stables and into the chaos. The quickly freed the War Elves from their prisons and sent them into battle against the Legion of Supermanboys and the other allies that Alex Luthor had summoned from across all creation. 

"Batman, we have to get over there and stop Luthor," Santa said. "Come to me, Rudolph!"

The Red-Nosed Reindeer pulled his bloody antler from the abdomen of a zombie and ran over towards Santa.

"Take me to the Pole," Santa cried as he and Batman mounted the poor beast. Rudolph took off, arcing towards the pole machine.

* * *

Luthor raised a hand and felt the energy crackling through him. "Excellent!" he cried. A beam lanced out and a huge rift in space-time formed overhead, bigger than the moon and hovering less than a mile above the surface of the world. 

"Now to resurrect the complete multiverse once again—instead of these Fifty-Two hollow imitations."

Just then, Santa and Batman came charging from overhead, Rudolph careening wildly under the weight of the two men. Alex snarled, blasting at them with a beam of magic that sent Rudolph off course. Batman and Santa fell into the snow below, but struggled to their feet and climbed up the hill. Santa drew a sword from his boot and Batman cracked his knuckles. They both dive-tackled the mad universe-restarter and tumbled down the hill.

Santa attacked with the falchion, while Batman punched and kicked furiously.

"Where are Wonder Woman and Batman?" Batman demanded, punching at Luthor's face. Luthor dodged and jabbed at Batman's gut, then kicked him away.

"They left to go help the JSA and JLA." Luthor said. "I told them that I'd surrender if Superboy-Prime lost and they actually believed me. Hah."

"You fiend!" Santa snarled, slicing at Alex Luthor's head.. Luthor dodged, but lost a chunk of his curly red hair in the process. Luthor tore into Santa, delivering punch after punch into his big jolly belly.

Batman kicked him in the back, but Alex flipped forward and landed on his feet. "How did you get so good at Martial Arts?" asked Batman.

"Hah!" Alex smiled. "Where do you think all of Cassandra Cain's skills went?"

* * *

"For those of you keeping track at home," said Cass, "that's the second explanation for my nerfication this chapter."

* * *

Superman's eyes opened slowly, and his first impression was an overwhelming sense of redness. He didn't know what it was at first, but he knew he felt awfully funny. He slowly pushed himself up, and looked down at the red light. Finally, he realized that the light was Rudolph's nose. 

But why did it make him so nervous? Superman staggered to his feet and began trying to place the feeling. It was vaguely familiar… a tingling sensation that covered his whole body.

Suddenly, he glanced back down at the Reindeer. "If the Third Kryptonian arrived on Earth in 1938, and given a year for Rudolph's nose to become famous—and if Rudolph first appeared in 1939."

Superman goggled. "Oh no! That means that Rudolph's nose was made red—by Red Kryptonite!"

"What did you just say?"

Superman glanced down to see a small boy dressed in some sort of quasi-Victorian costume with an equally old-fashioned haircut. At first Superman thought he was an elf, but he was a bit too tall and his ears not pointed enough.

"Um… I said Red Kryptonite," Superman said.

"Oh," the boy looked dejected. "I was hoping you said berries and cream."

He promptly ran away.

"What did you just say!?" came another voice.

Superman looked up to see Luthor, Batman, and Santa Claus staring at him. The tingling in body grew stronger. "Rudolph's nose," Superman said. "It's Red Kryptonite!"

"This is bad," Batman said. "Red Kryptonite has an unpredictable and random effect on Superman. He could turn into a dragon, lose his voice, or become a Pikachu for all I know about the patterns."

Luthor's eyes lit up when Batman said the word Pikachu, then began to water.

"Great Scott!" cried Santa Claus.

Superman cried out as pain wracked his body, and the Man of Steel bent, falling to his knees and clenching his fists, grinding his teeth in pain. His fingers extended into long gangly tentacles, his costume ripping as his body swelled to unbelievable proportions. He glared up at the giant rift in space above him, and cried out one last time.

Superman vanished in a flash of light, and in his place, a monstrous entity hovered, tentacles and spiked maws covering its surface.

The monster floated over to the rift in reality and latched onto the side—as much as anyone can latch onto the side of a hole—and began sucking the rift into himself. As Superman did this, his body began to swell, growing larger and larger as it consumed the ball.

Reality itself seemed to warp as Superman grew larger, and Alex charged. "You're not eating my rift in space-time!" he cried.

A tentacle lashed out and grabbed Luthor, pulling the villain into the monster's massive toothy maw, and the glove that connected to the reality tuning fork machine jerked off and fell into the snow at the North Pole.

Where Robin promptly picked it up.

Batman approached him. "Tim, what are you doing?"

"Before I destroy that freak and save the universe, I want to give myself the greatest Christmas present ever. I want my parents and Conner back. And Bart, and Stephanie."

"Who?" Batman asked.

"Emo Flash and Spoiler."

"Ah, right." Batman shook his head. "But you can't, Tim. Bringing your friends back may start out as a noble cause, but it's not. I'm not sure why it isn't, but it's not."

"I don't care." Tim turned and began to use the realty glove.

Batman ran forward, leaping into the air; Robin dove out of the way and pulled out his staff. "You want to fight me, Bruce, then fight me!"

Batman charged forward, performing a powerful kick towards him. Robin tried to counter, but before he could, an arrow slammed into Batman's foot and Bruce fell back grabbing his bleeding appendage and snarling in pain.

"What the FRAK!" Batman cried, "Who on Earth shoots Batman in the foot on Christmas Day! OUCH!"

Robin turned to see Green Arrow approach, drooping his bow to his side. "You said you were going to bring back Connor, right?"

"I said ConnEr, with an e."

"Well, I saved you from your old man. Why don't you bring both Connərs back to life?"

"Aren't you dead, though?" Robin asked.

"Never stopped me before," Ollie shrugged. "Now hurry before Batman gets up."

Robin raised the glove in the air and began to use the magic of Christmas to bring Conner and Connor back, but as the glove surged with power, a tentacle lashed out from the reality monster and grabbed Robin by the arm.

"What, no wait!" he cried. The tentacle jerked him upward, and Robin found himself careening into the mouth of the creature Superman had become.

Green Arrow glanced down at Batman. "You know, now that you're short a Robin, I know a girl named Sin who might be pretty useful in that war on crime of yours."

"Screw off, Ollie," Batman snarled, pulling the arrow out of his foot.

* * *

By this time, the JSA had grown so large that the battle extended from the North Pole all the way down through Canadia and into the United States. Somewhere in New York, Jay Garrick skidded into a hole and found Cyborg half buried in the dirt. "Hey, Victor Stone!" he said aloud. "You want to join the JSA? We're on a membership drive right now." 

Cyborg just stared at the communicator Jay proffered and began to weep.

* * *

A resounding thud shook Alex Luthor awake; he didn't know where he was at first, but gradually his memories and his vision returned to him. He had been jumped by that massive creature. He seemed to remember something about Superman and Rudolph's nose being a method of great and powerful transformation... But that was ridiculous. 

Wasn't it?

As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Alex tried to move and found his arms and legs restrained by something extremely durable. He looked down to see that his body was covered in crystals that were pinning his harms and legs back. He felt the wall behind him with his head and discovered that it was both soft in places and crystalline-hard in others. He also discovered that his hair had grown back to its length during the first Crisis, minus the chunk Santa had sliced off with the Falchion.

An odd side effect of being eaten by a monster, he thought.

Alex closed his eyes and began charging a burst of his anti-matter power. Soon enough, he found the strength and released it, waves of energy shattering the crystals. He fell from his position suspended on a wall and landed on some soft, moist ground that he knew to be the innards of the monster. For the first time, he noticed the smell.

Oddly, it wasn't entirely unpleasant; it was as though the sweetest cookies in the world were rotting around him, a mixture of sugar and rank. Alex thought back to summertime when he would smell apples that had fallen from trees rotting in the heat.

Then he realized that he had grown up in the Monitor's space station in a manner of days and had never experienced a summer. The memory promptly vanished.

Not far down the 'hall', as it were, really just a cavity in the body of the monster that had eaten him, he heard a noise. Alex began walking that way, and soon realized that the noise was that of a child—a whimpering child.

His first thought was that it was Supermanboy Prime, but this whining sounded a bit younger than the teenager he had been trapped in Limbo with all those years. He staggered forward and finally saw that the whimpering child was Tim Drake. Except, not the Tim Drake that had helped him collect the Holy Artifacts.

This was Tim in his younger days, maybe seven years old. Alex realized that this is what happened to him as well—he had been deaged.

Alex felt something strange towards the boy. It took him a moment to realize that it was compassion. "Are you alright, Tim?" he asked, not knowing why.

"No…" Tim said. "I don't know why, but suddenly I just somehow knew all these terrible things. Like death and suicide. And my father is gone. And my mother, and my girlfriend, and Conner. And it's just too much for me to bear."

The boy began crying, and Luthor felt the sympathy in his heart start to grow. This worried him, for sympathy and compassion were traits often displayed by the corrupt heroes of this universe. He didn't want to become like _them._

"I just want my dad back," Tim said. Suddenly, a surge of energy crackled through the monster's innards, and an apparition of Jack Drake appeared.

"Tim!" it shouted, and knelt to hug his son.

"Daddy?!" Tim said. The embrace only lasted a minute before Tim smiled. Jack faded away, and Tim looked sad, but resigned. "My dad is gone," he said. "My dad wasn't a superhero, so he probably isn't coming back. But the others died before their time. We're all too young for this."

"You speak with wisdom beyond your years," Alex said, kneeling by time. And suddenly, Alex had a wonderful idea. Alex had a wonderful, evil idea. "But perhaps I've been going about this the wrong way. Of course!" he slapped his forehead, only partially for dramatic effect.. He really did feel quite stupid at this point.

"Of course what?"

"It's Christmas! The wishes of children are Santa's most important priority. And since this is the magic it uses, the magic that this monster consumed…"

Alex grabbed Tim and shook the poor child. "Tiny Tim! It's all up to you now! Make a wish, make the purest, brightest, most child-like Christmas wish ever!"

"Like for a new X-Box?" Tim asked.

"No! Wish for a perfect Earth!" Alex spat. "Make Baby Jesus proud!"

Tim closed his eyes and his restraints crumbled away with a faint glow. He thought long and hard. "I can wish," he said. "I can feel the power. Superman must know who I am."

"Then do it! Make a wish!"

"I'll wish for the best Earth possible," Tiny Tim said. "But it won't be perfect. No Earth can be perfect as long as there are people."

"Well I suppose—" Alex began to stammer.

"I mean, if Earth was perfect, we wouldn't even need Christmas. The whole point of Christmas is that the world was screwed up and Baby Jesus needed to come and fix it, right?"

"Well, technically speaking YES, but—"

Alex was again interrupted by Tim: "A perfect Earth wouldn't need a Christmas, or a Superman, or anything like that. There would be no holidays, because we'd never need a day off and we'd celebrate all the time. There wouldn't be a Hanukah because we wouldn't need oil to burn our candles. They'd light up for us."

"But—"

"That must be why I was allowed to get the Holy Items even though they would be used for evil. Also, if we've made the best Earth possible, there's one more thing we won't need."

Alex stooped down to listen and to make sure Tim was finally done talking. "And what's that?" he asked.

Tim finally looked up, opening his eyes. They were stark white and radiating light. Tim smirked.

"_**You."**_

The glow spread to the entirely of Tim's body, and the boy floated off the ground, his shirt fluttering as the energy radiating from his body caused the air in the chamber to swirl around.

Light exploded from within Tiny Tim, and Alex felt his hands start tingling. He looked down to see them being slowly deconstructed molecule by molecule and pulled into the vortex that Tim's body had become.

"All I want for Christmas this year," Tim said, "is for the world to be right again. Not perfect, not happy all the time. Just _right_. The way it was and would be before people started punching history and trying to change it."

Alex felt his body continue to break up, and soon, everything was consumed by white.

* * *

Outside, Batman and Santa stared with their mouths agape as Superman's newly monstrous form began to glow white and pulse with energy. Red cracks ran up and down his flesh, as though lava was getting ready to burst out from all sides. But it wasn't lava that came out when Superman finally exploded, but a red-white beam of energy that sent fractures throughout the entire universe, pulses that arced from here to Tamaran and back in the blink of an eye. 

And slowly, the 52 worlds began to draw together, spiraling into an unstoppable vortex of space and time and matter and energy until finally the concoction reached critical mass.

_**KRAKA-BOOOOOOOOOOOM!**_

* * *

**December 25th**

**New New Earth**

Static swirled through his mind, and he twisted slightly, perceiving that whatever he was, he had a body. Slowly he felt his eyes open and saw the ceiling. It was warm, and there was something rather heavy and warm on top of him.

"Tim?" asked a soft voice. "Are you awake?"

Tim Drake sat up slowly and looked down. He was on a bed—his own bed at Titans Tower, he realized. And on top of him was draped the purple-clad form of Stephanie Brown—the Spoiler. She looked up at him with out her hooded cloak or mask on, smiling. "I've been awake for a few minutes," she said. "I didn't want to move until I knew you were."

Tim shook his head, as strange memories and events began rushing through his mind. Santa Claus, the world blowing up. Pikachu…

What did it all mean?

"Tim?" asked Stephanie. "Are you okay?"

"I. I'm fine," he said. "I just had a bad dream. A really weird bad dream. My memories are a bit shaky right now. Um…" He glanced down at her and ran his eyes down her body, then over to his. "I mean, we're in costume and all but… did we have sex?"

Spoiler's eyes show wide. "No!" she said, suddenly slightly red, pressing both her hands together at the fingers and then tapping them together nervously. "I mean, not that I'd be opposed to the proposition, I don't guess, if you wanted to. But um… No. We were just watching_It's a Wonderful Life_ together and I guess we kind of fell asleep." Spoiler reached to the other end of the table and handed Tim a bowl of popcorn. "It's cold, but it's still pretty good," she said. "Cheddar-flavored goodness."

"Thanks, but I'm not hungry yet," Robin said. "At least, not for popcorn." He leaned forward, sensing Stephanie urging him on, and kissed her on the lips. "Mm. Your mouth tastes like cheddar."

"Not the best pick up line you've ever used," Spoiler said, reciprocating the kiss.

"I knew that mistletoe would be good for something," she said when they were done, pointing upward.

Robin smiled. "I didn't even see it."

* * *

Later that day, everyone who had ever been a Teen Titan showed up for a Christmas lunch, save for the one or two that absolutely refused to celebrate Christmas with the rest. (Which, as it turned out, consisted precisely of the Titans the author doesn't know much about. Funny coincidence, that.) 

While Bart Allen and Liberty Belle—the grown up version of Jesse Quick—exchanged humorous stories about Wally West, Tim Drake patrolled the halls of the Tower, talking to everyone he met. His memories gradually fell into place as if there was nothing wrong.

"Conner!" he cried, wrapping the teen in a hug. "Oh, man, it feels like you've been dead for two years!"

"Are you kidding?" Superboy asked with a smile. "They couldn't keep me in the grave for six months."

Raven sighed. "Technically you were never dead. You were just in the Kryptonian death-like coma that Superman fell into. IT just took you longer to recover because you were only half-Kryptonian."

On the other side of the room, Risk gave Cyborg a great big hug. "Man, these new arms you built for me are great, pal!" he said. "I will cherish them forever. Of course, I do expect something new next year."

"No problem there," Cyborg said. "Turns out that hole I was buried a few months ago in led me to a huge gold mine. I'm pretty much loaded."

While Prysm and Blue Beetle chatted in a corner, Robin found Cassie Sandsmark—Wonder Girl—in the back. "Hey Cassie, about that kiss."

Wonder Girl arched an eyebrow. "I thought I had Zatanna mind-wipe you about that! I was drunk, and I regret the whole thing. End of story." Cassie stormed off and Robin scratched his head, staring at the wall confused.

Across the room, Ravager was furious. "KID DEVIL!" she bellowed. "Eddie! You little punk! What am I supposed to do with this!?" She held out a pair of 3D glasses and a new Gamestation 580 game that worked with them. "They require BOTH eyes to work!"

"Hah!" Argent slapped Rose on the back. "Never could catch a break."

"It gets worse," Ravager said. "He gave Jericho _Sing Star_ for the Playstation 2."

Argent fell over and began laughing at the top of her lungs. Most people just gave her odd looks, but Robin shook his head and smiled. Suddenly, Risk was beside him. "Hey, check it out, my arms have an MP3 player in them. Wanna listen to Garth Brooks?"

Robin shook his head. "Sorry, Risk. I don't like... Country Music just isn't really my cup of tea. Thanks for the offer."

Risk shrugged. "Your loss, bro."

The arms started up the opening chords to _Longneck Bottle_ and Robin shuffled away before Risk could change his mind and return. Stephanie joined his side, now in full costume. "Having fun, Boy Virgin?"

"I'm starting to clear up," he said. "Wanna go to the roof and talk about the past few years in excruciating detail?"

"Sure, I guess." Spoiler said. "These years are supposed to be the best years of our life, but something tells me that the best is yet to come."

"I don't doubt it," Robin said as they left the Titans Tower common room. He cast one glance back in at the gathered Titans. "I don't doubt it one bit."

* * *

**Disclaimer:**The scene in which Robin steals the Myrrh was written by Legend Maker. The opinions expressed therein do not necessarily reflect her opinion or the author's opinion of the Catholic Church. Robin may or may not actually be Lutheran. In fact, he may be Catholic, but having him be Lutheran made a better joke. 

**Disclaimer 2: **No profit was gleaned off the creation of this fanfic. No animals or Pokemon were harmed. The dead Pikachu was achieved through special effects. Chuck Norris did not appear in this story. The would-be inductee into the JSA was in fact, his fictional cousin of similar power, Chuck Noris.

**Disclaimer 3: **I wish you a Merry Christmas. If you did not have a Merry Christmas, please consult your physician, psychologist, or pastor rather than complain to me.

* * *

**Hypothetical Cast **

David Tennant as Jeremy Saxon

George Newbern as Superman

Adam West as Batman

Kevin Conroy as Batman

Frankie Muniz as Batman

Scott Menville as Robin/Tim Drake

Tara Strong as Tiny Tim/Raven

Billy West as Alexander Luthor

Dante Basco as Kid Crusader

Bill S. Preston as Booster Gold

Ron Pearlman as Santa Claus

Alan Moore as Alan More

Sinbad as Sinbad

Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach

Pikachu as Himself

* * *

Somewhere deep within the nothingness. 

Alex Luthor floated suspended in a sea of white. He didn't know how long he'd been there or how long he'd be there yet. But next to him, he had Pikachu. And that was all that really mattered in the end.


End file.
